


Women & Outlaws

by yeterah



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canon Compliant, Dialogue Heavy, F/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Multiple, Slow Burn, Slow To Update, Tags May Change, can't be a yeterah fic without it :D, in some parts, just a tad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:21:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 48,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23482330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeterah/pseuds/yeterah
Summary: [𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐞𝐝]From the rough country of New Austin, Bonnie was a sister to six brother before five of them died of varying causes. She grew up to appreciate the father and last brother she had left until they were killed too, on a dark night at the hands of the Murfree gang. At a more peaceful time, she was taught to hunt, shoot, and kill. Now, those skills must be put to the test as she goes from rancher to outlaw once Dutch van der Linde takes her in...[Bonnie "van der Linde" AU]
Relationships: Bonnie MacFarlane/John Marston
Comments: 45
Kudos: 54





	1. New Friends, New Problems

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO BONNIE VAN DER LINDE AU LOVERS!! YOU'RE READING A BONNIE VAN DER LINDE AU FIC ABOUT A BONNIE VAN DER LINDE AU AND IT'S A BONNIE VAN DER LINDE AU Y AAAAAAAAAAAAY
> 
> okay sorry. pls enjoy. hopefully i'll do this right ;w; 💖💕💖💕

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI HI QUICK REMINDER! I went back in and edited a lot of things, adding scenes, adjusting writing styles, etc. just cus I personally wasn't happy with where it was so far so... YEAH! There's that! Thanks for understanding aaaaand enjoy the newer version! (not the best version, cus this fic is certainly not the best, lol) 💖💖💖💖

It is an early and foggy morning, where the trees sway openly and giving all the land fresh air for it to breathe. The deer bask in it, grazing the tall grass on the ground alongside the birds up in the trees, humming and singing at the dawn of a brand-new day. The typical morning in the Eastern Grizzlies.

Then a sudden gunshot rings out, scattering every creature. It’s all at the hands of a homesteader not but a few yards away, groaning frustration.

She is hunting for her family, trying to gather food. Her father would have done it, but he’s too busy trying to find him and his children a better place to live than a homestead in the middle of no place. Her brother could have done it too, except he’s also busy… Sticking his nose in a Penny Dreadful and propped up against a tree.

She can’t look at her brother no longer than a few seconds before she is stomping after him. “Will you make yourself useful, boy? ‘Stead of filling your brain with all that romanticized drivel?”

Her brother scoffs, of all things. “Sorry to disappoint you, sister dearest, but ‘stead of being chained to a shotgun all my life, I actually want to do somethin’ greater and worth my while.”

“This ain’t being chained to no shotgun—this is _survival!”_ On “survival”, her hand comes to snatch his book clean from his hands. “Now quit your lollygagging and get after that deer!”

Her blood always curls at the boy for his swindling his way out of real work, for the sake of _studies_ and _books._ He’s a fool who believes books will get someone farther than their way around a gun and that is what frustrates her so. She knows it’s vice versa with him; he thinks that she’s the real fool, for believing a gun is the only way to make it in the world. It is why he does not take the shotgun she hands to him, glaring at her instead.

She knows her little brother, however; he only needs a few moments to act spoiled and rotten before he complies. It’s his way of accepting that it took more than a strange look to deter her. He drags his feet into the wood, and she couldn’t help her chuckle.

Her father couldn’t either, from the porch of their homestead. “Been twenty-odd years now, and you two still bicker like when y’all were knee-high to a grasshopper.”

That is a fact that never fails to shake her head. “I don’t know when he’ll grow up.” Meanwhile, she joins her father at the veranda, eyeing his paper. “Have you figured out our next move then?”

“I reckon,” her father begins nodding and pointing to a passage just at the corner of the paper. “There’s an old plot up in Hennigan’s Stead it says, you remember that place? It’s east of Armadillo. Land still ain’t been settled yet, according to the paper.”

“Ah! I do remember,” she smiles thinking of it. “It’s real fine country up there too, ain’t it?”

“Yeah! Good for cropping, grazing, raising cattle. And there’s some horses in the backcountry if I remember right. Fine horses, and plenty of them. We can make a decent bit of money off those broncos. And comfortable land… with nobody bothering you none.” Her father ends his reminiscing with a smile. “What do you say?”

“If it’s what you want, Pa! I just wonder about the travel,” she answered him honestly. “We’ll be going a long way, across two states to be precise. You think we got all we need?”

“’Course we do! We don’t need _that_ much; there’s only three of us,” her father shrugs. “And the long drive’ll be worth it this time. That I guarantee.”

She smirks. “I know. Just as long as you’re sure.”

In turn, her father grins brightly. “Just certain, sweetheart.”

She knew this plot would be good for him; a long time ago, when he lugged them all out of New Austin amid the cholera outbreak, it hit him harder than any of them. He went through good and bad in New Austin, so much so that the state is his pride and joy now, so naturally he would need that again after nearly a decade without it. He needs the peace and the familiarity. She needs it too, and whatever her father needs to be content again.

He stood from his chair and began walking to his mount, O’Neil. “Let me start by fetching a loan from the bank; they can help us pay for the land. Meanwhile, you can help your brother with that hunting. I know everything’s ‘bout clear as mud to him right now.”

She chuckles as she watches him mount up. “I know it. Be safe, Pa!”

He trots down the path and she waves him off, not leaving her spot until he turned the corner. She met her brother in the woodland shooting for the trees and quite unnerved from the conditions, but she wasn’t surprised from a person keener on reading than surviving. She and her brother managed nevertheless, and when their father came back at dusk, he had venison and fresh greens waiting for him.

Her father successfully got their loan, and with that, their next morning is busy. Clothes and supplies are packed, weapons and furniture, until they had their wagon loaded and moving down the roads to greener pastures and finer living soon enough. They sang and talked and laughed with each mile, from the misty mornings to the starry nights.

Tonight, however, the stars didn’t shine so bright. The overcast above hid them all and made the earth below thick with darkness. The light from the wagon’s lanterns did not help in combatting it either.

The daughter still tries to make out the roads, for her eyes are sharper than her father’s, who wields the reins. He ends up groaning eventually because of it. “Can’t see a damn thing.” He turns to her. “What you think? Should we stop and camp here or keep riding to Annesburg, get us all some rooms?”

She took a moment for thought, then, “Best we stop here. We go on like this and we’ll catch ourselves crashing into a ditch somewhere.”

Her father agrees with a chuckle, and with assistance, he parks the wagon into a clearing wide enough for a camping space. Here, a bonfire is made, venison and pork are grilled for eating, and tents are set up. The hours are late before the family is comfortable, food on their stomachs. The father is nodding off, with his son, and his daughter too, when the embers of the fire soothe her mind like nothing else…

“Nice fire. Mind if I warm my bones?”

She jumps right back up. Her father and brother have too. It is a ghoulish man, the most malnourished she has ever seen, squatting down by their fire and _too comfortable._

“Hey—” her father grabs his shotgun quickly, roaring. _“Who the hell are you?”_

She turns, reaching for her gun as well, until an odd cut slices through the air. Odd enough to turn her around.

She finds her father’s head open, straight down the middle, under the rusty metal of a tomahawk.

Her brother hollers, flails, and cringes, then meets the exact same fate.

Spur of the moment, she drops to her feet. Something pinks her chin on her way down, though she doesn’t feel it—not at all—until her back hits the ground. It thuds on cold, wet mud and everything comes at once.

She flips onto her stomach, about to jump on her feet when a hand comes and slings her right back in the mud. It belonged to a balding man, just as lithe as the first and raising a machete in the air.

She knows what is coming. She throws a punch but misses. She tries again, and again, and again— then knuckles come hard against her eye, flurrying out stars and a ring in her ears. The cut comes no matter what— clean and smooth through the gristle of her chest.

Her scream tears her throat at the seams. Her blood is on his blade and overalls and face, crinkled with a wicked smile. _A nightmare._

Her eyes lock on to his open jaw, landing a punch there that made it— _thank God._ It’s strong enough to knock him back completely, while she makes it to her feet, springing for the trees.

The ground is uneven, and the wood is dense and dark, but she keeps going; nothing stops her. Nothing but a sharp burn right beneath her knee, so sharp she had no choice but to fall.

Her flesh cooks, pulsing, and it makes her cry out into the grime. She knows exactly what it is: a bullet.

Sudden rustles go through the thicket behind her though, and she forces her noises into a halt.

“Should we chase her?”

“No, she ain’t going far with that shot up leg.”

She damn sure wants to try, and when the footsteps trail off, she finds a rock to lean on for a head start.

The uneven ground and depthless darkness hit worse now, with a shot-up leg and vision increasingly blurry with tears. She can’t stop seeing her father and brother’s brains through the dark, can’t stop hearing the slices, can’t stop seeing that balding man… Her tears are hot rolling down her cheeks. _What has happened? What has happened?_

Soon it would all end. Soon, her ankle would twist, and her fall will have her rolling down an incline, grass and dirt flying into her mouth, until her head hits its base harder than the rest of her.

The very last thing she registers before she is pulled into an even darker abyss.

* * *

Water sloshes to her left. Birds are chirping from above. A breeze howls and her teeth chatter at it, toes and fingers stinging with frost.

Has she finally reached heaven? After that unreal hell? The light is so glaring and white, and the wind blows louder than the birds. Has God taken her in?

Suddenly something rattles her. “Madam? Madam?”

A man—the same men from before— _the one from last night_ —fear comes like liquid up her spine and she’s throwing punches again, with as much might as she can muster.

“Madam! Madam! You’re safe, you’re safe! Ease up!”

They’re putting on, trying to get her to trust them. She won’t give in— _she won’t—_

“Madam!” she’s yanked to this warm force, warm like a furnace and wrapped tight around her. “Madam... it’s okay, it’s okay. We ain’t gonna hurt you.”

She still resists, prying out of the grip, kicking out of the grip, but then those words are calm and gravelly in her ear. “You’re okay, ma’am. You’re okay.”

When her sight clears and her senses are regained, her blood is soaking this man’s shoulders, still spewing from her chin and chest. Her leg aches with everything and nothing all at once. Nothing is okay, and yet she cries, as if it is.

It’s finally over. She survived an attack on her life, and it’s finally over.

By the time the man breaks their hug, her snot and salt from her tears have merged in with the blood stains. He didn’t seem to mind when his eyes—like sapphires—are soft and warm. “Are you a’right, ma’am?” He has the midwestern drawl of a cowboy.

She finds it hard to answer him, with a gash through her chest and her heart in pieces. “I—I… My family, they…”

A sob is rushing up to her throat and to her eyes, though the squeeze the cowboy gives her shoulders sends it back down. “Take your time, madam,” he says. “Who’s ‘they’?”

She swallows, then, “Ghastly men— _awful_ men. Wore overalls. I ran, but they murdered my fol—” she begins to choke. “My…”

“You’re safe now, ma’am,” he stops her, continuing to affirm. “Now, we won’t leave you to fend for yourself out ‘ere in this wilderness, so I reckon it’s best you come with me and my friend here. Is that a’right with you?”

At his nod toward their left, she followed it, and saw his friend. He is grayed, older, and looking at her with pity. Who wouldn’t when she has finally lost it all? She had so much to live for, so many brothers, and now it’s all gone, within the span of a decade. She’d pity herself too.

She knows nothing can be done though. Nothing except to go with these men, otherwise she’ll be joining her family in death.

Her nod is weak, but the two get her message once they both work to lift her off the ground. What little blood she has left rushes to her feet at it, but they have her covered with strong grips and calming words. “It’s alright, miss,” goes the older man now. “We’re decent men, we won’t hurt ya’.”

They walk her slowly to their horses, waiting in the middle of the road. She is aided onto the saddle of the cowboy’s, who joins her once she is settled. The older man mounts up after him, and that marked the beginning of their hard ride to Lord only knows where. She just knows to keep her grip on the cowboy’s coat _tight,_ for it’s the only thing keeping her tethered to the cruel, cruel world.

Loud, vigorous gallops take up the silence until the cowboy speaks up. “What’s your name, madam?”

A catch of breath, then she answers: “Bonnie MacFarlane. Miss Bonnie MacFarlane.”

“Miss MacFarlane, you’re going to be safe now,” the old man says next. “We have a little camp in the Heartlands we’re taking you to. We’re gonna get you back to snuff, and when it’s all over, you just tell us what you want to do.”

“Who you think those men were?” the cowboy asks. “She said they were overalls. Nasty looking?”

“Murfree Broods, probably. We may not be _exactly_ where they spawn, but perhaps they broadened their horizons.”

She can feel the cowboy’s sigh from his back. “Goddamn.”

Murfree Brood will be a name Bonnie won’t ever forget.

She falls in and out of consciousness for the rest of the ride, which is why it ends up a distant and unmade memory. When she wakes up for the final time, however, she is being trotted down a path where the trees are standing tall and healthy. At the end of the path is the camp the old man mentioned before. Packed and busy and unlike anything she has seen before.

“Back already?” someone smiles at the men before his eyes lay on Bonnie, then shock comes to him in the form of bucked eyes. It’s a reaction that is shared by all the camp’s people, along with gasps and the stirring of quiet conversation. Bonnie is quite the sight, and it feels awful to know.

The cowboy and the old man hitch up at the same time another man emerges from his tent, well-dressed and dapper and joining everyone else in their surprise.

“What’s this, Hosea?” he says. “I thought you was out hunting with Arthur?”

The two men that rescued her are called Hosea and Arthur. The old man is the one who replies to the dapper one, however, so he must be Hosea, and the latter man—the cowboy—is Arthur.

“Was,” Hosea says as he dismounts. “But then we ran into this poor soul Miss MacFarlane. She’s badly hurt, I’m afraid. May have died if me and Arthur didn’t catch her.”

“Yeah, she’s alive, but only just,” Arthur chimes in, hopping down the horse and climbing Bonnie down. She tries to stand on her own, but she couldn’t even manage that. That is when she’s scooped off her feet, into the arms of Arthur. “Murfree Broods attacked her and her family.”

“Poor thing,” she hears the dapper one grimace right before calling out a pair of names: A Miss Grimshaw and a Swanson.

Hearing her situation be commentated on put her through it all over again, until something cool brushes against her aching back, the soothing fabric of a cot’s bedsheet.

While Arthur comes to fluff her pillow, she barely makes out the dapper man outside the tent, giving instruction. “Hosea, tell one of the girls to bring some warm water and towels. Reverend, calm her nerves, give her a drink of whiskey or somethin’. Miss Grimshaw, Arthur, you get her undressed, I’m gonna go fetch Strauss—and miss?” He addresses her, peeking from outside. “You’re gonna be okay. You’re in safe hands now.”

Those are words she doesn’t doubt until drapes closing turns the world back dark. Dark like the night. Dark like a specific night. She swallows down a rapid heartbeat. _I'm safe, I'm safe._

Hands come down on her, on her vest and on her boots. She cannot see them and that’s what makes her whimper and resist.

“Calm, miss. We’re just gonna get these clothes off of ya’.”

A lady’s voice: Miss Grimshaw, she presumes. She should’ve known then, as a fellow woman, how unnerving it is to be undressed in this way. She keeps reminding herself though. _I'm_ _safe._

Her vest is yanked open and that caused the wound on her chest to wake up; it hurt. She kicks involuntarily, then her leg is restrained.

Once again— “It’s alright, ma’am. Calm down.”

They pull at her boot and there goes her bullet wound—they hurt her again. Her hand flies up, not so patient.

It hit something on its way up. Then, “Miss!”

Her arms—both—are gathered in a tight grip, slammed above her head. It scares her, and feet free, she kicks again, but they are held down too. She can’t see what is happening. _What the hell is happening?_

Her mind screams it. Nothing nice.

She is not safe.

She squirms under their _pulling_ and _yanking,_ writhing her arms free and throwing absent, aimless punches. Wherever they land, she hopes on her danger.

Then a giant force pins her down, knocking the wind out of her. Her sense goes with it. She begins to scream. Begins to beat the force, until her arms are pulled underneath it. She can’t move anymore— _she can’t move anymore—_

Dread escapes her lips in a brittle cry. This is last night again, but worse. It’s not one balding, lithe man, but many, come to finish what they started. Heaven has abandoned her. She’s damned.

She screams for an ending. Pleads and _begs_ for an ending. _Hasn’t she suffered enough?_

Then when her arm is yanked from under the giant force, a sharp poke coming to it, it comes. In the form of even deeper darkness.

A train full of wealthy folk is due to ride through Scarlett Meadows soon, where it’s so quiet one could hear a pen drop. Arthur saw robbing it as a pain, but John saw it as an opportunity, and his fine art of persuasion got his brother to think the same. It’s exactly why he has been gone all day, gathering the ammunition and guns needed for the job. Abigail needed something from the store too, which kept him out longer, but made him more grateful to make it home at the end of the day. It turned out longer than he would’ve liked.

John tethers his horse Old Boy, and after that, he walks to his tent calling his name. Something stops him in his tracks, however, something odd about the air around his home. The crowd gathered in front of Arthur’s tent made the feeling no better—and Arthur is not even the one inside.

Dutch is talking to Mary-Beth, a pail in her hands. The water inside of it is redder than the towels that hang from its rim. “How is she then?” he asks.

“She’s out for the count, filled with morphine,” Mary-Beth answers. “Strauss says everything went a’right though.”

“She’s stitched up and bandaged now,” Susan adds. “Me and the girls are just cleaning up.”

John approaches, for his imagination runs riot. “Everything alright here?”

The eyes that meet him are tired, worried, and scared. Meanwhile, Arthur’s eyes show annoyance which isn’t anything new. “Well then. We was wondering when you’d show up.”

Hosea is the one to clear the confusion. “Me and Arthur found a woman out hunting. A Miss Bonnie MacFarlane. She’s in Arthur’s tent now, resting. Frightened half to death when we got her—and still frightened. It was a struggle calming her down. She’s been in a hell of a fix.”

John glosses over the tent now, unsure of how to feel. “I thought we was done picking folk off the streets?”

That earns him a look from Dutch. “Don’t be no arrogant son of a bitch, John. Arthur and Hosea weren’t going to leave her where she lay, bleeding out and dying— that ain’t right.”

John didn’t feel like arguing. “Guess not. She got family?”

“Killed,” Arthur answers this time. “Murfree Broods. You remember them?”

He did, after a shudder. The same gang who ruined a camping trip between the four of them back in the day, when he was about fifteen. They tried to kill them and rob them and do all other unspeakable things to their corpses. John grimaced. “Bad business.”

“It is,” Arthur nods, alongside Dutch and Hosea. Unintentionally, a moment of silence is had, before Arthur speaks up again. “So, what now?”

“Well, we do what we always do,” Dutch begins. “Save fellers as need saving, and feed ‘em as need feeding. Lord knows the poor soul needs that more than ever now.”

Dutch leaves after that, head bowed and dragging his feet to the tent where Molly would love him into bed. Hosea and Arthur drug their feet to their beds as well, though John… he stays put. Staring at Arthur’s tent because even with knowing the gravity of what has happened, his curious eyes still go to peep through the drapes. 

It’s a sad sight. There is a woman there. She is sprawled out on Arthur’s cot, jaw hanging and completely asleep. Her leg, chest, and chin are wrapped in bandages soaked in her blood. An _incredibly_ sad sight, only because John knew how it felt; she looks just how he did back in Colter after his wolf attack. And when she wakes up, he knows she will have to deal with feeling helpless, miserable, and useless.

He frowns closing the drapes, walking worriedly to his tent for his own sleep. He hopes she’ll be okay.

Camp life went back to normal slowly but surely in the span of a few weeks, the only thing abnormal being Arthur having to turn his napping rock into a sleeping rock with the new addition holding his tent. John won’t lie that he’s been curious as to how he is managing that. Meanwhile though, he is keeping himself busy with the upcoming train job until one Saturday afternoon. It is sunny, calm, and quiet while John eyes Arthur’s tent. Or _Miss Bonnie’s_ tent now.

It looks so veiled in shadow compared to the sunniness of the day. To anyone normal, it would have deterred them, but John isn’t normal. Adding to that, he wanted to bring light to it because why not? If Abigail could do it for Mrs. Adler, he can do it for Miss Bonnie. He has also been curious about her character for a long while yet.

With that, he finished cleaning his gun and holsters it, strolling up to the tent with confidence. However, he stops right at the entrance; he did not think of what to say to her.

He is there now, though. So, he clears his throat.

The birds answer from above, the light wind and the camp noise, until— “Who is that?”

John opens the drapes, smiling at what he sees. “Well, you’re alive.”

She is sitting up in her delicates, wide awake and reading a novel. Her hair is free and unkempt on her shoulders, and her bandages have come off to reveal her scars. They look like his own, only a lot more blood soaked. Nevertheless, John finds it amusing that she is prettier than what he remembered.

“So it would seem,” she says, closing her book. Her voice sounds like it’s half-gone.

“From the way folks was talking out there, I thought I’d be looking at a corpse.”

He jokes with her, pulling up a chair. She didn’t find it funny, however, when he sees her stiff and uncomfortable beside him. He eases up in his own way at that, creating some distance between them and changing the subject. “How you feeling?”

Her fingers scratch at the leather of her book. “I’ll be well again soon.”

John smiles. “I think that too,” he tells her. “Strauss ain’t made himself a career in doctoring, but he knows a little somethin’ about fixing fellers up. I reckon you got a few more weeks before you’re back on your feet—”

“I don’t… _really_ know if I will, sir, but… I appreciate your kindness.”

_“John,_ please. Ain’t nothing gonna be formal from now on, I can promise you that.”

She doesn’t reply to that, and it leaves John a moment to look at her more, how she doesn’t slouch even without a corset. How presentable she looks despite her injuries and messy hair telling a different story. “Bet you come from that life,” he says. “Full of formalities, and rules, and order.”

“I grew up on ranches, sir, and many more homesteads,” she tells him. “I’m just as hillbilly as anyone else ‘round here.”

“You seem otherworldly to me.” The words slip out of him without thought, only noticing it happened when Miss Bonnie gives him a look. “Proper, I mean,” he corrects.

Her look holds, though not for long. John kept his look on her though, staring at the complexion on her skin, which he now notices glows even in the low light. “You must be from the west,” he says. “The sun’s tanned ya’.”

He sees some red almost spread to her cheeks. “New Austin,” she clarifies. “I lived there for most of my life until ‘round ten years ago, when cholera swept the place. We left after that.”

“Your folks, you mean?” John’s head cants. “They told me they found you up at O’Creagh’s Run, the Grizzlies. I hear it’s some fine country ‘round there. I bet you and your family had a fine time, in good air and plenty nature to look at.”

There’s a long pause from her, then—

“Not so fine, when my folks is laying dead not too far off there— I’m sorry— Must we really talk about that?”

John was too busy making conversation to notice her eyes swelling with tears. Seeing that fills him with shame; he should’ve known better than to talk about that place, and about her happier past. “I—I’m sorry, madam. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

He thought an apology would stop her tears, but it didn’t. Her sob came bursting out of her like an ulcer, unstoppable and hard to watch. He is about to reach out when suddenly, “Why’d you come talking to me? What made you think that I wanted to talk?”

It catches him off guard. “I— um, guess I just wanted to check up on ya’.”

“For _what_ , mister? You don’t even know me.”

“I don’t, no, but… Even so, you’ve been through so much and I reckon we all want to make sure you’re alright.”

“How the hell could I be?! All my family is dead. Don’t you understand that? My brother— he’s killed _fifty years_ before his time, and after all my daddy’s suffered fightin’ the Indians, he’s killed by some stupid inbred white trash! Ain’t that enough for me to deal with?”

She sobs into her hands after choking those words out, words that John couldn’t begin to know how to respond to. He thinks she knows this when her sigh comes out exasperated.

“Oh, just go, will ya’? I mean it— _go.”_

Why did he bother her? To help her or himself? He saw a pretty girl and not a woman going through the worst moments of her life. He got what he deserved. He stands from his chair.

Her cries kept him around, however. Watching her rush to get her tears to stop, to calm herself down, but failing _miserably…_ He wants to help in some way, in _any_ way.

He reaches into his pocket and gives her what he could. “Here, madam. Have this.”

His handkerchief. He bought one only a week ago, had it personalized for himself with his initials stitched maroon at its corner, meaning to use it but never did. He knows a woman in aid, who has lost every dreg of hope this world had to offer her, needs it much more.

Her crying halts for a moment, to look at the cloth and him with this… certain glow in her eyes. John didn’t mean to, but he curls his brow at it; it tells something so different than the sadness, anger, and guilt she’d just expressed. Tells something more, and more than that, it makes his stomach flutter. _What is it?_

But he is left no base to figure it out when she accepts it with suspicion, with the telling that she is still suspicious of him. Still hates him. She never says thank you crying into the cloth and John doesn’t stick around after that.

Nothing shakes him up more than what happens later that day, however. He is across camp, back to cleaning his revolvers, when he was just at the right angle to spot Arthur in the same tent he left a bad impression in, letting cool air in and putting a smile on Miss Bonnie’s face. Arthur, he could show kindness so effortlessly when he’s such a mean old bastard and arrogant.

Though after today, it makes John think. Maybe _he’s_ the arrogant and mean one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> give me feedback naow 👁👄👁❤


	2. Pathetic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *phone guy from fnaf voice* HELLO HELLOOOOO
> 
> ha ha look at yeterah being cringy- ANYWAY HERE'S CHAPTER TWO !!!!!!!!.... it's short, but hopefully you'll like it anyway !! if not.... WELL COMMENT DOWN BELOW AND TELL ME WHY LFGDFH 💖💕💕💖💖

Time passed on at a slow, yet fast rate and Bonnie was caught in the middle of it. She made some do with that time though, reading and trying not to succumb to her heavy heart. She couldn’t help the feeling when the dawning on her being the last MacFarlane hits her every day at every hour. No more brothers to speak to, no more parents to watch into ripe age. It’s just her.

Her scars were still raw, even with all the time that has passed, but they heal in their own ways. Miss Grimshaw said her leg might heal too, but Bonnie didn’t bet on it. Hosea gave her one of his old conman props anyway, a cane with maroon wood and a silver lion’s head for a handle. He encouraged her to work her leg back into snuff, meanwhile explore the new place and talk to the people… However, when she found a lonely stump under a lonely tree’s shade, she stayed by _it,_ for it kept her more company than a human ever could.

She likes it there. It’s her place to wander, to escape into the pretty country the Heartlands had to offer. The deer let the wind comb through their hides, enjoying a meal with their friends and families. So did the birds of different blues and yellows, singing together and soaring the skies.

It is beautiful to her. Beautiful and painful.

“How are you, miss?”

Hosea. She smiles at him for courtesy. “I thank you, Mr. Matthews, for lending me this cane,” she says. “And for saving my life. You and, um… Arthur.”

She almost forgot his name. Hosea takes it with a grain of salt, chuckling. “Of course. You’ll be back on your feet soon enough, even your leg I reckon.”

Something like a laugh escapes her. “I ain’t too sure about that. I can hardly move the thing at all— not without hurting myself. Same goes for my chin when I’m talking, or my chest when I’m breathing, I…” she trails off, realizing what she’s doing. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to complain; y’all been taking such good care of me.”

“You’ve got every right to complain,” she makes Hosea frown. “It can’t be easy for you right now. Wouldn’t be, for anyone— not even the strongest of folk.”

Bonnie is glad he understands. “I know. Thank you.”

She is about to return to her thoughts when Hosea looks like he wanted to finish a thought. “I know somethin’ of what you’re going through, you know,” he begins. “I lost my wife of ten years. Drove me to such grief I found no solace but in the bottle.”

Now she’s the one that frowns. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

He waves her off. “Eh, long time ago now,” he says. “It still hurts sometimes, but then it will for a while. You’ll miss them dearly, but life… It’ll go on. And you’ll go right along with it eventually. Eventually, you’ll find strength in your grief.”

Her head falls. “I ain’t so sure it’s as simple as that, Mr. Matthews. ‘Least not for me.”

“Well, it isn’t, I won’t lie to you,” he admits. “This type of thing is unfair, and nasty. You’ll be asking God why, all the time it ain’t no point in it. We simply have no control over these things, and things like this… Well, they’re somethin’ we all got to bear, unfortunately.”

“But I won’t bear it. Not for a million years I won’t.”

Her eyes begin to swell now. She thought she finished this, that her tear ducts must be dried up by now and her heart couldn’t be more broken. However, her cry comes spilling out, quicker than she can control, and she finds she couldn’t be more wrong.

Sniffling and whimpering, she can’t help shaking her head in shame. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to embarrass you…”

Then his hand comes gently on her shoulder. “You aren’t, my dear,” he says. “Have your cry and your sorrows. Grieve at your own pace. Meanwhile, we folk’ll be here for you every step of the way.”

Even behind a river of tears, her smile to him is genuine. Those words were needed more than ever. “Thank you, Mr. Matthews.”

He remained by her side until her tears dried up, then he left to join the camp folk in their hustle and bustle. Bonnie watched the sun go down, watching the moon take its place and hoping in Hosea’s words, however much her heart doubts them.

The next days are slow, and life did move on as Hosea said while Bonnie kept with the dead. People said joining the living would help her vapors and help her escape her vicious mind. Her mind is vicious, when the prospect of _really_ joining the dead is more comforting, though she didn’t have the guts. At that rate, she figured she might as well try talking to people, and maybe start with Arthur first; the man did save her after all.

She watches him from the tree stump now, at a table and smoking a cigarette. She is tempted to ask if he had a spare. The thought is funny though, when she could see her father hitting the roof at the mere idea; he hated smoking and hated smokers, puffing smoke into their lungs. It almost makes her laugh thinking about how he’d rave about it. Almost.

She goes to him. She didn’t have to make herself known when he saw her coming, standing in her presence as if she were a queen and not a lowly peasant by the way she waddled there.

He tips his hat. “Ma’am. How can I help you?”

She points at his cigarette, half-spent. “Wondered if you might have a spare,” she says. “I ain’t got none on me myself unfortunately. Sorry.”

“That’s alright, madam.” He reaches into his satchel, coming up with that spare in short enough time. “Here ya’ go.”

She takes it and the seat she hovered over. He gives her a match too that she strikes against the wood of the table, lighting the cigarette up with its flame and immediately set to sucking all the smoke out of the cigarette. She coughed some up, and harrowed some down, but either way it quenched her longing for relief.

Conversation is not made until a long while of them painting the air gray with smoke, then Arthur clears his throat. “I hope you’re settling in alright.”

“I am,” Bonnie replies. “I appreciate you giving me your tent. I’ll be sure to get out of it soon; I know you’re tired of sleeping up against a rock, Mister— um…”

She trailed off, in need of a last name. He catches on with a chuckle. “Morgan, Arthur Morgan,” he tells her. “And don’t worry ‘bout me. You just get your rest, madam, that’s the most important thing right now.”

She somehow manages a smile, though Arthur never made it impossible with his kindness. “Very well then, Mr. Morgan. Thank you.”

The next patch of silence to come is comfortable, while they spend the rest of their cigarettes. Then, Arthur takes on a seriousness that makes Bonnie wonder until, “I just want to say I’m sorry, about your family. We got a woman just like you ‘round here, who lost just as much. So, ‘guess that tells you you ain’t alone in this.”

His last words aren’t very comforting when his former words tore through her like a bullet. “I’m sorry too, Mr. Morgan. And I had heard of that woman. I’m sorry for her too, whatever her name was.”

Allan? Adler? She couldn’t remember what Miss Grimshaw called her, but she didn’t really want to try. Her heart is broken again, right when she thought the cigarette would give her a moment’s peace.

Her will to talk left, and it should’ve marked the end of their conversation. However, Arthur moved to take the seat in front of her. “Listen,” he starts with a sigh. “I know there ain’t too much to be done now, but we should love to help you. All of us. You just holler, alright? We’ll be there.”

He is so kind, and has been for a long while, even back in her early days of recovery when any graze against her arm sent her into a spiral. He has always been there, always nice. With that, Bonnie feels he is worthy of her smile. “Thank you.”

He smiles back and leaves. Bonnie couldn’t help watching him go. Arthur Morgan, how sweet he is.

However, from a few yards away and chopping firewood, John disagreed.

Maybe he did agree and that’s why he disagreed. Arthur being better always turned his stomach, ranging in many subjects, including women. _Especially_ Miss Bonnie now. Her scars may be as raw as meat—who is he to talk? — but her posture is regal, her hair is a beautiful flaxen color, and her eyes are a poignant blue up close… This is the making of a fine woman to John, a fine woman that he is unwilling to share.

He chops one last log before he’s after her. She is a more pressing matter now, and he’s determined to see that matter through—

“John? Hey John, can I talk to ya’ a minute?”

He knew that voice as soon as he heard it. “Not _now,_ Abigail. Not ever! Just… leave me alone, will ya’?”

He may have been coarse, but what did it matter? Abigail’s been nagging him all these weeks and the weeks before then, now he wants and _will_ have his peace—

“You’re pathetic. You’re a pathetic man, John Marston!”

She leaves him, like he wanted, only now it stings. “Don’t I know it?”

He knows she is right. He _is_ pathetic. Pathetic and wanting. Those words were a wake-up call to reality anyway, when he looks at Miss Bonnie sighing; he’d forgotten their first encounter, when he made her cry and she found no joy in his presence. Abigail doesn’t want him, and Miss Bonnie doesn’t either—never will. He is a fool to think otherwise.

So, why does he keep thinking otherwise throughout the day? Is it for the sake of beating Arthur at something? Has he gone crazy under the sun, merely wanting to do something for the sake of being kind when he is nowhere near it?

When dinner time comes, however, those questions are answered. When dinner time comes, he is the last to get his stew, his company for the night, until he stops right outside his tent to look at Miss Bonnie. At her, then his stew bowl, then her again. Then he walks toward her, holding his bowl out for her to see.

He smiles. “Hungry?”

So, he _is_ kind after all.

She seemed to have not taken it as kindness, however, when she looks at the bowl with an itch of a scowl. “No, I ain’t, thank you,” she responds promptly. “You can have it.”

“Nah, you need it more than me I reckon, when you’re grieving and things,” John steps closer by a small bit. “Nothing makes you hungrier, right?”

“I just told you I ain’t hungry.”

That makes his shoulders drop. However, something tells him to insist. “Well… you ain’t been eating none since you been here. You must be ‘least a _little_ bit famished. Come on, eat you somethin’— here—” 

He takes her book out of her hands and puts the bowl in its place. He crossed a line and he knows it; it is why he hurries up stepping back and putting his hands behind him. “It’s, uh, good for ya’, that stew. Well, it… it ain’t good, but it’ll fill you up.”

She barely touches the bowl for a while, inspecting it instead. She looks angry and John prepares for yet another outburst when, “You’re a persistent little cuss, ain’t ya’?”

Just an odd look she gives him. Relief comes like an ocean wave. “When it matters,” he smirks. “Anyway, I reckon I owe you for my impertinence a few weeks back.”

He is being impertinent now. Perhaps it’s good impertinence though, when Miss Bonnie’s scolding goes no further than that and she finally picks her spoon up. With that, he took the chair in front of her, and now it’s like their first encounter again. Hopefully just in term of position this time.

Miss Bonnie begins to eat soon, albeit gradually. John wouldn’t want to watch her eat so he starts conversation instead. “So… Have you figured things out? What’ll you do next?”

She finishes chewing before answering him. “Well, I won’t linger ‘round here much longer, like a bad smell. I’ll probably go back to New Austin, earn me some money and get that plot my father found in the paper…” she trails off. “I guess.”

He could feel she was not confident, which made him frown, but not as much as her thinking of leaving them. “You ain’t got to do all that,” he says. “You can stay here. As long as you want.”

Now she frowns back. “I ain’t no drifter, Mister—…” she stops again before her sigh is exasperated. “I never got your last name.”

“It’s, uh, Marston. John Marston,” he fills in her blank. “And… no, madam, I figured you wasn’t, but… It’s nasty out there. On your own. Folk ‘round here ain’t so bad. You’ll be safe here, honest.”

Her laugh is light and quiet. “I ain’t so sure of that with the life y’all are leading.”

His laugh is light also, head falling. She’s a hard woman. “Listen, I know we ain’t at our best, but it’s better _us_ than some other band of bloodthirsty murderers. Or a pack of wolves! Hell, take it from me.”

Her brow quirked at that, looking at his scars. She’s been curious about them, as have anyone else who ever got to know him now. Still, “I mean it though. We’ll keep you safe. You’ve got my word on that.”

John caught her at a loss for words then when she plays with the beef and potatoes floating in her stew. “I can’t say I’m flattered by the words of a no-good.”

“It don’t matter,” John tells her. “Just make sure you know.”

He meant every word; anything for her. He hopes that was enough to convince her to stay. He couldn’t tell with her head bowed the way it is, however when she lifts it…

That glow in her eye returned. Contradictory to her attitude and telling him something his spirit knew but his conscious mind didn’t; it’s why it struck his spine the way it did. It looked like a glimmer Abigail once had for him, or a glimmer he had for the passing showgirl in the saloons.

Then he knew what it was. He knew, and he could feel his sense leaving him the longer he stared.

“What you call this then? The hick retelling of Romeo and Juliet?”

A recognizable chuckle comes, from a man John couldn’t help turning to glare at. “What do you want, _Micah?”_

The man doesn’t answer him, only wanders his eyes to Miss Bonnie; an action that somehow pisses John off more than him merely standing there. He hums at her. “You must be the reputable Miss Bonnie MacFarlane I keep hearing so much about.”

She didn’t need to know his character to frown. “That’s me.”

“Have you managed a plan then?”

John doesn’t allow Micah to talk to her, not when he interjects. “’Course she does. And what’s it to you?”

“Simmer down, cowboy, I just want to get to know the lady,” Micah swats him off, turning to her again and tipping his hat. “Micah Bell, by the way. Now please, Miss MacFarlane, I’d love to hear your plans.”

John turns to her too, wondering what she’ll say. After a pause, she speaks up. “I want a ranch in New Austin, if you must know, Mr. Bell.”

“Oh, that’s a big dream, ain’t it? Reckon you need a lot o’money for such an endeavor,” Micah droned.

John’s head moves back and forth between them, watching for any lack of propriety in Micah and for any sign of discomfort in Bonnie. So far, she is bowing her head. “I would imagine, yes.”

Another pause comes, tense, before Micah unwarrantedly steps up, switching a finger as if in thought. “You know… I’ll tell ya’ what: why don’t you get a job in the saloon? You’d get plenty of money then as accounting to your beautiful face and—near as I can tell—beautiful body.”

John jumps from his chair, seeing red. “Leave the lady alone.”

“Hell, I’ll tide you over if you want. Now those scars’ll be covered up ‘cause they _are_ a bit distracting, but perhaps I’ll have the good sense of knocking you from behind—”

“You heard what the hell I said, Micah!”

“Don’t worry ‘bout your dignity either, Miss MacFarlane. I know your daddy might be disappointed knowing his daughter ended up a whore, but then… he ain’t here no more, now is he?”

_“Goddamn you!”_

Stew bowl comes soaring passed John’s ear. Barely misses Micah, just like John barely misses Bonnie who comes charging after that bastard like an angry bull.

Punching at the air and kicking, she roars like a wild beast. _“You talk to me like that again and I’ll feed you to the goddamn vultures myself, you son of a bitch!”_

She beats on John now, to be free. He keeps his grip on her tight, however, and his glare at Micah fiery. “Just _back off,_ Micah!”

Finally, he does, chuckling. “Sure, Mr. and Mrs. Romeo. You just tell me when, Miss MacFarlane! You just tell me when.”

She never stops squirming and yelling after him until he got completely out of sight, merging in with the darkness. That is when she pushes John away with shocking power, wincing, and limping back to the cot she flops down on. She kicked her mangy leg too much and griped too loud and it’s all because of Micah.

John tries his best apologizing for him. “Madam, I’m… That bastard is a _menace._ He don’t know his ass from his mouth with the amount o’shit he talks. I’m real sorry ‘bout that—”

“What— like you ain’t like him? All vile and nasty, just like the outlaws you are?”

That pauses him. “What?”

“I don’t trust your no-good ass! Not you, or him, or any one of you thieves and murderers! You all disgust me. Just get your ass away from me.”

“Wh— Miss! I’m sorry he upset you, but I promise we ain’t all—”

“I said _get away from me!”_

His lip quivers before it tightens, hands shake before they ball up into fists. He wants so badly to stand his ground, _insist_ that he’s a good man and that she’s got to trust that. But frustration did him no favors, and he ends up stomping away, just like how Abigail would do him.

Humiliation doesn’t do much good for him either when he finds too many eyes have witnessed what occurred. One of those eyes are Arthur’s. The good man. The _better_ man.

He marches to him with a mean glare. “Don’t you say a _goddamn_ word, Morgan.”

The man had that tendency, to rub things in, to show John how worthless he is— him and Abigail and many others. And all this time, he thought dumb Bill got the brunt of it.

He leaves no time for the eyes to peer any longer when he retreats into the woods. He finds a tree that outlooks the roads, hurrying for a cigarette— for _relief,_ because his nerves couldn’t be more frayed. His kicking at a rock as hard as he could is even more proof of that.

He _is_ pathetic, folks were right. Genuinely pathetic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 comment/kudos/bookmark/subscription = 1 molecule of serotonin for yeterah


	3. Friendship, For Beginners

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS TOOK FOREVER I'M SO SORRY but i hope 5000+ words make up for it? aaaaa
> 
> PLEASE ENJOY AND TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK!!!!!!!!!!!!! 💖🥺💖🥺💖🥺💖

The sun’s rays put a calm down all in its path in the comfortably blue sky. The breeze is the perfect mix of cool and warm, strong enough to sift through the leaves in the trees. All this, and it did nothing to ease John’s nerves, not while he couldn’t stop tearing and ripping at his midday paper.

He still hasn’t been getting through to Miss Bonnie, and her cold words are just as fresh in his mind as the day they were spoken. They gnaw at him each day and he wonders why; it isn’t like he hasn’t been beaten down and torn apart by a woman— Abigail is walking proof of this. Something about Miss Bonnie though, something about _her_ tearing him apart… it unnerved him.

Maybe it is the mysterious something that kept glowing in her eyes. He keeps thinking it over, keeps letting it take hours away from his sleep, only because it gives him hope. Is her surliness a front? Is he doing something right?

He won’t think about it now though, at least not for much longer. The hours in the day are growing scarce and work needs doing, as always. Folk in town heard of a herd of sheep coming to auction from Emerald Ranch, said the owner is trying to stomp out every farm from Valentine to Annesburg. If John could scoop them up, get some pay on them, it’d be good money. Additional money for the train job.

With that, he closed his paper sighing and packing up things needed for the job. Afterwards, he started after Old Boy, his trusty steed.

However, right when he thought he could slip away quietly— “How you doing there, partner?”

Dutch, come with a warm smile and paternal curiosity. John obliged him: “Fine.”

“Heading out?” 

He must have noticed his determined walk to Old Boy. “Yeah. You still meeting me there?”

“Ah, yes. I reckon I’ll wait for you at the saloon,” says Dutch. “I’d bring an extra gun too, just to be safe. I think Arthur will suffice. How are things with you and him anyway?”

Just hearing his name made his blood spike if he were honest. John left this bunch for a year one-time, which Arthur never stopped badgering him about but it’s calmer now. However, Miss Bonnie shows up, Arthur continues to mess around with her knowing how much it irks him, so there’s _still_ this vendetta. He doesn’t tell Dutch all that though, to be spared a lecture. “We’re fine.”

He’s still given one, only— “You know, me and him were talking about Abigail and Jack just the other day. That is a fine family you got there, son.”

That is the beginning of a conversation John really wants to end. “So you folks keep telling me,” he frowns. “And I ain’t even sure Jack is mine. He probably ain’t.”

Dutch frowns back. “‘Course he’s yours. It’s the truest of gifts, a child. A _family._ And yet you push them away.”

John’s patience is waning, but it’s another thing he chooses to hide. “I ain’t no kind of family man. I wish them folks no harm, but you know how we live.”

He’s back after Old Boy now, and Dutch follows in silence until he hums. “Yes, we’re _free._ Free to make our own choice, manifest our own destinies. You seem to be… Enjoying that freedom, ain’t ya’?”

John stops, turns to look at him. “What you mean?”

“Listen, son,” Dutch plants his hand on his shoulder, continuing their walk. “I just know fellers can try at friendships that ain’t exactly appropriate and get awkward later on. We all fall victim to it! As I say though, it ain’t often the best of things. Just ‘cause you can do it don’t mean you should, that’s all I’m saying. Family’s a much better thing to try at.”

John’s frown is heavy; he knows exactly what Dutch is playing at. “Just who is this supposed to be appropriate for?”

“Oh, well don’t jump down my throat, dear boy; I’m only offering friendly advice,” Dutch’s hands leave him, to fly up in retreat. “You know I only want the best for you.”

Is the best reminding him of empty obligations? Letting Arthur get so invested in his life when he’s got one of his own? Making him feel like he’s committed several cardinal sins looking in Miss Bonnie’s direction? He has to glare with doubt. “If you say so.”

Now he mounts up agitated and thinking the whole ride to Valentine. He’s not sure if Dutch is right in his lecturing, or if it is right for John to be mad about it. Once again though, he chose to cut his thoughts short when there were other things to be done, and a headache to remain mollified.

He made it to the auction, and eyed the sheep there thinking on how to go about the job. In his thinking, he forgot about Arthur, but then he showed up on his own eventually; John suppressed any gripes he had with him, for the moment. Together, the job was successful, despite the minor kickbacks, and they left there for Dutch in the saloon. Arthur, naturally, got to drink with Dutch, and John was sent with Strauss to watch out for any, quote, “funny business” outside. 

Then a group of men on horseback came running in town like Paul Revere, and ended up holding him and Strauss hostage. Why John didn’t see them coming he didn’t know, but he knew it was the fault of this oil magnate he heard they robbed up in Colter, a Mr. Leviticus Cornwall. With the shootout that started next, they learned it was their worst mistake since Blackwater so far. 

They were all wanted now, in Valentine. Pinkertons could gain word and that wouldn’t be good for them or the gang, so Dutch lugged them all to Lemoyne, and camped them elsewhere at a place off Clemen’s Cove and not a long way from Rhodes: Clemen’s Point. The air is hot and soupy, as all places seem to be in that state, and the people down there, racist, and close-minded, are quite something. However, Hosea and Dutch heard tell of some gold to be found, among these two warring families: The Grays and the Braithwaites. If John were honest, their going about this seemed as good a method as every other one, but maybe that isn’t the point.

Meanwhile, Miss Bonnie looks happier and healthier by the day from where he can tell. Growing sunnier and scars turning into distant memories, just like his. She can walk now— thank goodness— and can work, as she’s taken Mrs. Adler’s place at Pearson’s wagon after her little “development”... And she’s growing closer to everyone but him. 

He’s watching her now, talking to Tilly and Karen and Mary-Beth, about books and stories of Lemoyne’s past. Smiling and laughing. He still hasn’t done his part with her, thinking that was best with her rightful opinion of him, but it’s been so long. He’s ready to prove her wrong now, show her he isn’t the woman-playing outlaw she thinks he is. The question is, _how?_

Then Charles comes walking past him, and it’s like a lightbulb went off in his head. “Hey, Charles!” 

John knows he interrupted him, when the oleander and arrows in his hands told him he was making something, but Charles stops no less. “Yes, John?”

“I got a favor to ask of ya’,” he begins. “You mind teaching me how to hunt with a bow? I, uh…” he trails off, thinking of a reason. “I never got the hang of it! And I’ve always wanted to know.”

Charles curls his brow. “What’s wrong with a rifle?”

“Uh, nothing! Nothing at all,” John shrugs. “I just heard arrows give you a… Cleaner kill, ya’ know? Much less messy than a rifle or a knife or what have ya’.”

“Hold on, you’re not even much of a hunter.” What joins the curled brow is a side-eye now. “What is this _really_ for, John?”

“Nothing!” John insists. “I just wanna know how to hunt better! I know enough about guns. Then Pearson’s always moaning ‘bout the food we’s supposed to have ‘round here.”

Charles kept scrutinizing him, until— “Ah, this is to impress the girl, isn’t it? And what would Abigail say to that?”

That man can read way too well into folks. “She won’t say nothing, ‘cause I ain’t up to nothing!” John frowns. “I just wanna learn my way ‘round a bow, and most importantly put a smile on Pearson’s face. Can I do that or not?”

“Alright, alright,” Charles starts chuckling and shaking his head. “You got me. Come on then.”

John got defensive because his breath was really bated. With Charles’ compliance though, relief and hope stirred through him. He hoped this would be enough to pioneer a friendship at least. He really hoped. 

Ultimately, he was taught, and taught well; it explained why Arthur used to come to camp with a week’s worth of food all the time, before getting caught up in Hosea and Dutch’s recent dealings that is. John continued to practice, and the day where he would act comes in about a week or so.

He’d prefer no one butts in when he does this, and he knew no one would in the afternoon; everyone is too busy with chores or with guard duty. Miss Bonnie is available, reading a novel to herself by a lonely fire, and so is he, straightening his hair out and dusting his vest off on her way to her. He stops a few feet behind her, and after a solid breath, he clears his throat. 

“Hello.”

She looks up, and John’s not surprised by his knees bucking at it. 

“Hi.”

Strangely enough, her tone is welcoming but her expression shows anything but. It’s what kept John at his distance, and his hands twiddling behind his back. 

“How you, um, keeping?”

“I’m alright.” She genuinely seemed so before John came and bothered her. Things felt like they were getting too close to their other meetings already— her disgusted by his presence and him acting like a fool— but he was determined. 

He points at her novel after hiding his swallow. “What’s the book?”

Her nose is deep in it. “Jane Eyre. It was one of my momma’s favorites. That sweet girl Mary-Beth gave me her copy if you must know.”

“Mary-Beth”, not “Miss Gaskill''. That must’ve meant she is comfortable, finally. That gives John hope; maybe she can get comfortable with him too. 

“Ah, I see. Hope it’s good.”

“It is, actually.”

Silence crept up again. Makes John nervous for fear it’d last too long. He creeps up a step. “Um, wanna learn to hunt or somethin’?”

He sees a smile quirk on her. “I know how to hunt, Mr. Marston.”

“How ‘bout with a bow?”

She suddenly looks up from her book, amused. “A _bow?”_

“A bow,” John echoes. “I can show you your way ‘round one if ya’ like. What do ya’ say?”

Then her amusement shifts, and she turns back around. “I don’t think so, no. Maybe another time, perhaps.”

His posture dropped behind her back. He was a just a keen old fool, and she knew that. “Sure.”

But his feet wouldn’t move, and hope keeps pestering. So, “Any clue as to, uh, when that might be?”

Miss Bonnie turns around again, this time humored. “Mr. Marston!” she guffaws. “You really are quite persistent.”

Her words sound like a mere nibble at him, though it feels like a bite. “I’m sorry, madam,” he mumbles. “Only I was going out to see what I could find in terms of food, and with you being cooped up here so long, I figured you wouldn’t mind... Accompanying me?”

Silence _really_ creeps up. It’s tense and awkward, filled with her staring at him with a funny look and his doubts beginning to stampede into his mind, but then, she closes her book… and stands up giggling.

“Alright, come on then,” she said. “If it means that much to ya’.”

His heart feels like it wants to soar into space. “It does.”

She shakes her head at his cheeky smile, leading the way. He knew he looked silly, but it didn’t matter; weeks of practice and a good cleaning up did him some service, something he couldn’t help pumping his fist in the air to.

They walk to their mounts, Old Boy and her Palomino called Lilibet; a dainty and petite horse, exactly right for her. While they got settled in their saddles, John tells her what’s what: “Ain’t much of a ride from here, where we’re going. It’s back towards the north, in Scarlett Meadows. Spotted a decent herd up there. We could use the meat.”

He spurs Old Boy onward, and Miss Bonnie gets her Lilibet to follow right behind. “Alright then.”

They trotted half-way down the long path that separated Clemen’s Point from the rest of the state before John picked up conversation. “How’s your leg? I see you ain’t using that cane much anymore.”

“I’ll be fine,” Miss Bonnie replied. “It’s slightly sore, but apart from an extra scar or two, it’ll be as if nothing happened.”

John smiles at the good news. “I’m glad to hear that,” he says. “I, uh, hope I’m allowed to say you’re looking much better, miss, considering you was almost buzzard food when we picked you up a while back.”

She smiles too. “I reckon I have y’all to thank for that.”

“So, them back there, they all treating you fair?”

“Yeah, I suppose you folks are alright, for a group of murdering and thieving hucksters that is,” she admits without malice. “Excluding that Micah Bell, who lives up to his name.”

“Yeah, Micah’s a proud fool,” John speaks _with_ malice. “He ain’t ever gonna bother you again. I’ll make sure of that.”

“No, _I_ will. He’s got another thing coming if he crosses me again.”

That makes John laugh, for he believes her. Meanwhile, they have reached the end of the path and are continuing the road north. Once in the open terrain, they could have spurred their horses into gallops, but John chose not to; he figured his companion would like to admire the scenery a bit.

And he sees she is when he turns to look at her, her glowing in the atmosphere as if she were a flower that is getting its first dregs of sunshine. She starts talking after a while. “I reckon you were right ‘bout me being cooped up back there too long, Mr. Marston. I can hardly believe I’m seeing grass and trees right now.”

She’s real funny. “I was worried you’d need it,” he chuckled. “It’s the least I can do.”

“You know I been meaning to get out myself,” she begins. “’Course I never got ‘round to it ‘cause, well… I thought if I ever wanted to do something other than grieve, it meant I was on my way to forgetting my folks. Now I’m realizing I’m just recovering, and my daddy would’ve wanted that more than anything, for me to recover.”

She takes in more of the landscape, all the while thinking, until she meets John’s gaze with a small laugh. “Not sure why I went on that tangent, sorry…”

John smiles his reassurance. “It’s alright,” he tells her. “We’re glad to see you getting better. And you ain’t ever gonna be alone facing your demons no more now, I can promise you that.”

A truth that she found comforting; he could see it in her smile. “Still, I envy you men, out gallivanting whenever you please, despite the fact that all you’re doing is waking snakes,” she curls her lip. “And Mrs. Adler, who’s gone and made somethin’ of herself already, ‘stead of moping around like me. She’s lost a husband too.”

Hearing her talk of her pain like that, it makes John frown. “Ain’t moping,” he says. “Losing a father and a brother ain’t easy either, especially if they was all you had. I imagine it’s harder.”

She sighs. “Yeah… Even so, I… I want to do _somethin’._ Somethin’ to get me out of this vale of shadow I can’t seem to shake. Somethin’ to get me strong again.”

“Hope it ain’t turning to this way. All Sadie’s done is risk life and limb joining a band of lowlifes and murderers. And might I say, the work we do ain’t fit for a lady like you. We ain’t doing much hunting so much as we’re hunted, and them things hunting us got guns of their own…” he catches himself rambling, something he does when he begins to worry. “I just don’t want no lady to get hurt is all.”

“I daresay I ain’t too much afraid of death, Mr. Marston, and I doubt I’m a lady.”

He turns to face her. “Well, you is one to me, and I ain’t met a finer one yet.”

A forward statement, he realizes in the silence that follows. Though he also realizes she takes no offense to it when her smile is sweet and gentle, that pretty smile. He couldn’t help but to mimic it.

It takes a few more gallops and trots before they’re passing Rhodes and to their destination, the very spot Charles took John to practice. Once in a clearing, and once the herd is spotted, their horses were tethered, and the hunting began.

Miss Bonnie was a coarse but competent learner; she would frequently blame John for her bad aim, marking the trees and the grass, but eventually she would get the hang of it, and would have them both stowing a decent bit of hunting on their horses by the twilight hour. Nighttime reared in fast and John recalled it being too dark to travel in the country they were in, so he told her it’d be best making camp in the area.

John did just about everything, setting up the tents and conjuring up the fire, for he felt Miss Bonnie had done enough for the day. He kept warm by the fire what with the weather getting like it did at Horseshoe by nightfall; cold and bitter. However, Miss Bonnie kept refuge by a lonesome boulder behind, cooped up with yet another book she had stored in her saddlebag. John doesn’t wonder why until too much time passes without her by his side. 

“I hope this ain’t putting you off, miss,” he calls to her. “My adventuring ways.”

She looks up from her book, light ghosting on her silhouette and allowing him to make out her small smile. “‘Course not, Mr. Marston.” Then back to the pages. 

John raises a hand to gesture. “Well, come, sit by the fire.”

She hesitates, but eventually closes her book and joins him. He hopes that isn’t her not wanting to be by him, or that she is growing tired of him. However, the more time passed, the more John saw no fit dwelling in his worries as the warmth of their bodies and of the fire eased them all. So did the calm silence.

John couldn’t keep quiet for long though, with the embers of the fire growing less entertaining, and his becoming more and more aware of Miss Bonnie’s presence. With that, he hums. “I hope you enjoyed yourself today.”

“I did,” she smiles, then lets out a patch of air— a laugh. “Can’t hunt with a bow to save my life, but you live, and you learn.”

She makes him laugh again. “‘Course.” Then his chuckle trails off, for a thought. “You remember what you said earlier? ‘Bout making somethin’ of yourself. Did you mean that? Really?”

He spots not a lick of irony in her eyes as she speaks. “Every word. I spent most of my life thinking I knew my way ‘round a gun, about protecting those I love, but if that were the case, my father and brother would be here. So, if I don’t make somethin’ of myself, I at least need to know better.”

“You say that like what happened was your fault,” John frowns. “It ain’t, you know. We blame ourselves all the time for these things, but… You were helpless, from what I was told. You couldn’t do nothing. So, you ain’t got to prove nothing to nobody. Not Dutch, not Micah—"

“It _was_ my fault, Mr. Marston. If I was quicker, and if I was braver, they could’ve lived. I know that now, I was there. You weren’t.”

She went from serious to cold in an instant, breaking their gaze and turning it to the fire. John didn’t mean to be impertinent but, “I still don’t believe that.”

“Well, I do.”

His angled brows furrow. “You’re stronger than you think. I don’t know no man or no woman who can walk off what you’ve been through like you have. Takes a hell of a lot of strength, which you got. I mean that.”

He says those words firmly, for he meant them. Looking back into the fire, he felt Miss Bonnie’s eyes on his temple that he chose to ignore until he heard her chuckle.

“You sure do love to compliment me, Mr. Marston. I wonder if you do that to keep on my good side.”

John felt called out, something he had to laugh off. “Reckon that’s what most people do.”

“No, I mean you do that so I don’t chew you out like I did that one time,” Miss Bonnie says. “I still ain’t apologized for that…”

When Micah came and put a damper on their friendship. His eyebrows perk up, surprised to know she remembers when he figured she didn’t. “Oh, _that…”_ he chuckles, “That’s alright, miss. It’s a long time ago now.”

Miss Bonnie chuckles too. “But it really isn’t alright. I made a fool outta’ you.”

“Ain’t like I ain’t no fool to begin with.”

That makes her laugh. “Well, I suppose you are somewhat of a fool,” she says. “But you ain’t rotten. I see that now.”

John looks at her to smile but then his gut goes reeling again. Her glow in those eyes, like a lake after a looming tempest, stops him. The one that taught him to hope like he has never done before.

It is unreal seeing it a _third_ time; it must mean something now. He doesn’t want to count his chickens though, doesn’t want to give in to false hope… Then she looked just as longingly into his eyes and her cheeks went rosy.

He thought he would never speak to this woman ever again, that he’s botched every chance he had to make amends… And now, under the violet starry night by a crackling fire, his eyes can’t keep away from her lips.

He really _has_ made amends, but never thought at what amount.   
  


  
“Aw, look at these two, fellas. All in love and that.”

They both scurry up to a voice, one belonging to a man in Confederate uniform. There’s more of them by him, chuckling something rotten.

They don’t look friendly, something that has John hurrying up to shield Miss Bonnie and putting an available hand on his revolver. “The hell you want?”

“You folks ain’t got no business camping out here,” one of them goes. “This here’s our country. _Lemoyne Raider_ country.”

John hides Miss Bonnie even more, glaring daggers. “Lemoyne Raiders, huh? I heard about you, and I must admit, fellas, that I done seen and heard enough of your hide.”

They laugh at him. “You got some nerve on you, Yankee, talking down to a militia like that,” one goes. “A militia that won’t hesitate to kill you—” he looks beyond John, at Miss Bonnie. “And the woman.”

“You lay one damn hand on this lady, and I’ll put a hole in your hillbilly head, quicker than you can _blink—”_

But it already happened, and not by his hand. The crack of sound turns all their heads, including his.

He sees Miss Bonnie then, who had one of his revolvers smoking from the barrel.

John’s eyes bucked wide. “The _hell are you—”_

Then a bullet whizzes by them. One, then two, then a bunch.

John seizes her, taking her with him behind a boulder; the same one she sat up against when things were _much_ more peaceful. His mind is everywhere and nowhere due to that woman’s actions, but he’s got to focus, or they’ll be playing harp in a minute.

Checking his round to make sure it’s hot, he turns to her in a shout. _“Give me my other gun!”_

_“I’ll fight with you!”_

“Wh—” She starts moving up out of cover, but John catches her just in time. _“No! Stay down!”_

_“I’m fighting with you and that’s the end of it!”_ She writhes out of his grip which he could’ve sworn was substantial. She starts over taking a chance and John wants to stop her, wants to pin her down against the ground if that’s what it takes, but then he watches her fight.

Her back is steady, unwavering, and never tensing. And not one bullet goes to waste, when the pop of his revolver is followed by a cry on the latter side. She’s even shielding and fighting at the right moments too… _Has she done this before?_

There isn’t any time to think that over though, not when a bullet almost grazes his toe. He gets into proper position, making use of his revolver now. He manages to land a couple of bullets on one man’s head and on another one’s chest. Left him three more to spend in a mercenary running after them with his rifle.

While reloading, he side-eyes Bonnie the entire time. She’s doing unrealistically well, _unnervingly_ well. But they’ve made it this far when the numbers on the latter side seem to be wavering already. It must have meant his trigger itch and her feminine intuition make one hell of a team, a thought that John knew not what to do with.

Loaded, he shoots one bullet through a man’s leg when— _“John! We should move; there’s more coming with dynamite!”_

The last word isn’t heard when a bullet rattled his eardrum. _“Coming with **what?!”**_

****

_“Coming with—”_

Then a stick, ignited, lands right between them.

**_“—Run!”_ **

****

Run he does, with all his might, and yet he is still sent into the air. Blades of grass and patches of dirt soars right alongside him until he hits the ground, hard enough to knock all the wind out of him. Ears ringing, he hears nothing twisting on the ground but his hearty groans.

His entire body aches with impact, leaving him stiff. However, a bullet cuts the air by his nose and that gets him up fast. He crawls after a tree and takes cover there. Head spinning, he does his best making aim and defending position when—

_Bonnie._

_“Miss MacFarlane!”_ —he shoots a man through the head. **_“Bonnie!_** _You alright?”_

Rallying cries and bullets answer. His heart sinks to his legs. **_“Bonnie!”_**

****

_“I’m okay!”_

He hears her calling at the other side of the clearing; relief never came in such high drafts. Then one turn of his head reveals her pale red dress dashing and dodging _in the open._

His heart sinks even further. _“Bonnie! The hell are you doing?! You’re wide open!”_

But she remained in the open, his revolver going off in her hand at rapid speeds, like the rhythm of a drum. She may be holding her own, but she has a measly revolver against numerous repeaters and dynamite; the odds could, if not _will,_ change.

That alone is enough reason to send John sprinting out of cover and after her. The thought to pay attention to the bullets and to the growing numbers left him, his focus tunnels on Bonnie.

But right when he was about to spring after her, a terrible burn scorches through his side— so intense it sent him tumbling to the ground.

His revolver flies out of his hand on impact. He feels his heartbeat in his head rolling over on his back. He wonders what throbs and burns his flesh until ruffling a hand there, then it runs with blood lifting it back up. A bullet.

It hurt even worse noticing it. Made him sweat even more and his breathing get even more rapid and amid it, he groans loud into the gunpowder-laced air. He’s down, but bucking his eyes into the stars, he _prays_ Bonnie is not.

And she isn’t, shots stopped and sparing a look at John that he eventually meets. One that had her eyes bucked and her lip quivering with the rawest amount of fear John has ever seen on a person.

And yet in the same moment he saw it, it lifted like a fog, replaced with something that compelled her to stomp after his discarded gun. Then she saw her face the enemy with a rage that crept up her spine and erupted out of her _exactly_ like a volcano.

She sprinted head-on after those men, screaming, and hollering louder than the bullets she fired. John keeps trying to call after her, but it is almost as if a spirit possessed her, one who wants to tear the earth at its seams and kill all its people.

Her aim is right on the dime; she could shoot an eagle’s eye out of the sky if she ever tried. Bodies fall like dominoes and erupt with fire when she shoots the entire wagon of dynamite down. John has never seen a woman, so civilized and well-mannered, suddenly mimic that of a fire in its means to destroy.

She has blood and guts flinging all over her beautiful dress and staining her gold locks of hair, but she doesn’t seem to mind it, when her cries are war-like and she kills those men like a barbarian descendant; some get a bullet point-blank range and most take a bullet down the throat. John watches completely marveled. _Where did that all come from?_

Then he knew once she hears her broken roar, _“You bastards ain’t taking nothing else from me!”_

It came from love.

More and more men fall until there aren’t any left, all within the span of an unbelievable _minute._ Nothing beats the sight it leaves, however; A wagon erupted in a hellish inferno, complemented with ten-odd mercenaries soaking the grass with blood. Bonnie stands in front of it like a mastermind looking at his handiwork, a reddish halo around her highlighting the blood and parts caking her from head to toe.

John has been on this earth twenty-seven years, and he hasn’t seen _anything_ like it.

He must stand up eventually though, and he does with plenty of struggle. He wanted to join Bonnie by her work, something straight out of a war painting.

Every step is hell, but he gets to her side. He doesn’t dare touch her, if only to avoid sending her into a spiral. He simply just speaks up. “You good?”

Her head spins around. _“John!”_ Hands seize his shoulders with strength that wakes up his wound. It falters him and with his heavy grunt, it is enough reason for her to force him back to the ground.

“I thought you was… I thought… Oh, thank the Lord.”

John is warmed by her misty eyes. “Not yet,” he chuckles, even though it hurt. _“Shit,_ are you alright?”

“Me? Never mind me, what about _you?”_ her words are panicked. “You’ve been shot!”

She starts reaching for the hem of her dress, probably about to tear an inch of it off for his wound. John stops her. “No, I’m fine, really,” he grunts out. “This ain’t my first bullet. I’ll be alright.”

“You won’t—"

“I _will._ Trust me. Will you be?”

He genuinely wants to know, but with her eyes glimmering even more, there may have been a reason why she kept avoiding the question. She looks back at the uncanny scene before them again, her sigh clipped.

“My word… I really killed all those people, for nothing.”

That makes John frown. “For _self-defense.”_

“No, that was murder.” She looks down at herself now, sitting up and wiping away the blood and brains of her enemies. Not at all with pride, like she should have done. _“"Oh Lord,_ look at me...”

“They was about to kill us, Bonnie, and you did what you had to do,” John insists. “Don’t go weak on me now. You fought braver than any man I’ve seen. You saved our lives.”

She looked like she took in his words, though her lip never stopped quivering. “I just… I don’t want to lose anyone else.”

An errant tear rolls down her cheek, mixing in with the red on her face. It carried love, anxiety, and godforsaken fear with it and John could do nothing about it. Nothing except be there. “I know,” he speaks softly. “You’re one hell of a fighter, miss.”

He knows those words got to her, when despite her tears, her somber smile comes. She never denies his words, only turns back to the fire, and John follows her gaze. It’s like this that they stay for the moment.

The sight becomes ghoulish soon, however, which John presumes is the reason why Bonnie gets up on her feet eventually. “I best get cleaned up,” she tells him, weakly. She offers a hand to him that he takes.

Once he’s up, she asks again, “What about you?”

And he tells her again. “I’ll be fine when you are.”

He smiles at her and it’s one that she returns. “…Thanks for the trip, John.”

She trudges back to her mount, head bowed and somber. But she gets settled in her saddle, nonetheless, trotting away and leaving John on his own, with the overwhelming fire and the burning bodies to accompany him.

On his horse, he trots back to camp slowly, if only to keep his bullet wound from screaming at him. Everyone is shocked and thrown off by the sight he is left like, but he is pushed into his tent nonetheless. Dutch goes running to get Strauss, and he comes quick with his supplies and his tonics. 

The old man asks him eventually while stitching him up, "Whatever happened to Miss MacFarlane? Is she okay?" 

And the question makes John smile. "She's fine..." 

The finest woman he's known to date. "Just fine." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feedback really do be slapping 🥺


	4. Rustling and Other Desires

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLS EXCUSE THE LONG WAIT HOPEFULLY THIS BIG ASS ANNOYING ASS WORD COUNT'LL MAKE UP FOR IT AAAA (yes 7000+ words, i'm. i'm sorry hhhh)
> 
> HEY, AT LEAST THERE'S BAMF BONNIE HERE ;W; (thanks @fullysowerewolf ily muah)

Miss Bonnie set a fire that lasted a long while, painting the daylight sky an even paler blue and the night a rusty yellow. John watched it from camp when he returned a week after it started, wounds wrapped thick with bandages and veins heavily laced with tonic. Him and the folks that catered to him for the weeks to pass knew he would be well with that.

Perhaps Miss Bonnie operated differently though when she never came back for weeks on end. People, including John, were beginning to worry. But she came back eventually though, all the while answering the questions John and many others had.

She took on another look, everything about her changing but her violet vest. She wore chaps now, a red choker instead of a necklace, and bought her weapons: a Schofield and a repeater. She has done what Mrs. Adler has, something John feared but… she is blooming, no longer a shrinking violet, and that is admirable for a woman. Especially for a woman who has gone through what she has.

The gang rolled with it, and so did John; it is her life after all. With that, it is a new day and thinking of the job that needed doing, he looks at her from across camp and hums. Company never hurt.

She is giving her gun a good scrub when he approaches her. He gives her a smile. “Busy, miss?”

She looks up, returning it. It’s all they ever do around each-other now when their bond has been growing exponentially. “Not particularly, no. Why? Have you got somethin’ for me to do?”

“I reckon,” John begins with hands on his belt and boot picking at the grass. “I’m headed to the Gray plantation, see what information I can get on them horses the Braithwaites got stabled.” His eyes were on the ground until the end of his clause, looking at her with a cheeky smirk. “You wanna join me?”

Her eyes spark with intrigue, something that makes John smile even wider until the spark suddenly dullens and she withdraws. “Just a robbery, right?” she says. “I don’t wanna kill nobody, ‘less I got a reason to—”

“We won’t be killing nobody… ‘Least I hope not.”

He must be honest, though his honesty discouraged her; he could see it in the way her shoulders slumped. It makes him plead. “Come on… You said you wanted to get out more— now’s your chance! You can try your hand at robbing too.”

She twists her lip in thought before dropping her head to sigh. “It’s funny, us talking of robbing and killing when the old me would’ve wanted to go to confession.”

John slopes his head. “But?”

Another moment is had, then she stands up, smile just as cheeky. “But I guess I’ll join ya’, ‘least to rob.”

That makes John grin; he liked this new woman. With that, he takes her arm in his and they walk to their horses, guns at the ready and not a worry on their minds… However, one does seep through John’s mind once he spots Arthur at the tethered horses, coddling his own as usual.

He walks to Old Boy, hoping ignoring the man would help, but— “Heading out, Marston?”

It may have been a legitimate question, but it still irritates him to be asked. “Yes, I’m on my way to the Gray plantation. Like Dutch asked me to.”

“What, about them horses?” Arthur continues, and John replies with a hurried “yes”.

Foot into the stirrup, John gets his leg around the saddle and is on his way to telling Miss Bonnie to do the same when, “What’s she doing then?” Arthur points at her, brows furrowed.

John gives him a look. “Never you mind.”

He reaches out to tell Miss Bonnie to proceed but Arthur, once again, “Miss MacFarlane, what’s he planning?” he asks tiredly.

“Um,” she looks up at John, as if to gain permission to speak, but she does so anyway. “He wants me to come with him, on the robbery.”

John really wishes she hadn’t spoke up, if only to be spared the look he is given. “Don’t you start, Morgan,” he groans. “You ain’t seen her fight. She can handle her own just fine— trust me on that.”

Even with his word, Arthur still doubts. “She ain’t been at this a full month and now you think she’s ready to shoot and rob?”

“I saw her take down some ten-odd of them Lemoyne Raider fellas all on her own—” he points at her. “Tell him, miss!”

“It ain’t nothing I’m proud of, Mr. Marston,” she frowns.

“I know, but— well—” he wanted to stand his ground and Miss Bonnie didn’t help unfortunately, so he simply resorts to pointing in Arthur’s face. “I know what I saw. She’s worth _two_ of any man ‘round here, trust me!”

“I can handle myself, Mr. Morgan. I tend to, anyway,” she speaks up. “Plus, I must admit I’m getting bored of sitting around doing nothing but chores all day.”

Arthur finally sighs. “Well, if you insist,” he says. “I’m in.”

Yet another reason to pray for peace. “We don’t want you in, Morgan, we got this ourselves!”

“No… I reckon an extra gun wouldn’t hurt, just to be safe.”

Bonnie said that, and it turns John’s head. Meanwhile, Arthur laughs himself silly. “Look there,” he said. “If you ain’t gonna listen to me, listen to Miss MacFarlane here. She’ll knock some sense into ya’.”

He turns to mount up, him and Bonnie. Meanwhile, John can’t help poking his lip out at her. “You was s’posed to be on _my_ side.”

She merely giggles at him. “I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but whatever it is, it can be set aside for an hour or two.”

Outnumbered, John sighs. “I guess.”

Arthur’s Edith is already clucking down the path, and so after Lilibet follows, Old Boy does too despite his owner having gritted teeth.

They took a turn at the path’s end and continued onward. The noise their mounts’ gallops made took up most of the silence between them until Arthur, running point, decided to speak. “Has John even bothered to tell you how this works, miss?”

“She knows how this works,” John interjects. “She ain’t stupid.”

“But armed robbery ain’t no innocent pastime for me, Mr. Marston,” Bonnie politely corrects. “Stealing is all the same, but I imagine there’s some approach to it that I don’t know of.”

“And you’re right,” Arthur confirms. “Neither of these families are a very hospitable bunch, ‘cept maybe the boy and the girl, but they ain’t super involved in everything as much as they are each-other. Anyway, they like to push buttons, the Grays, but as long as we keep our heads, I’m sure all will be fine. If not, me and John’ll settle things like we know how. You just worry about the horses, miss.”

Bonnie answers with an “alright”, though John couldn’t make himself comply to this. “Why you acting the lead?” he questions Arthur. “This was supposed to be my job— mine and the miss’s.”

“It ain’t Miss MacFarlane I’m doing this for, ‘least not necessarily,” he answers. “I just ain’t sure you know your way ‘round protecting a woman.”

John glares at the back of his head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It don’t mean nothing—now y’all quit that bickering!” Bonnie blurts out just in time. If it weren’t for that, John would have chewed Arthur out, but he digressed with her plights, and her heavy sigh to follow.

“Is there anything else to know, Mr. Morgan?” she asks.

“Y’all two should ride ahead,” Arthur goes on instructing. “We shouldn’t head in like this, like some posse of country outlaws; they wouldn’t appreciate it. I’ll be coming in behind you, just try to convince those Gray folks we’re good people.”

John has to scoff at him. “Whatever you say, _boss.”_

He hears Arthur behind him— “I heard that!”— but rides on anyway. Going from there to the Gray plantation isn’t so difficult, as they make it there in a few gallops and in short time. John did some scouting on the place a couple of days ago too, so he knows the way.

They trot past many hands and fields before really reaching the Gray house, it and its class and gargantuan size. There were men at the entrance however, guarding the place at every side and waiting on someone to make the wrong move.

John turned and whispered something quick to Bonnie— “I’ll do the talking.”— before trotting up slow in front of the guards. The gun at the forefront is the first to furrow his brow at him.

“What you want, boy?” he questions.

“This here the Gray plantation?” John questions back.

“Yup, Caliga Hall,” the guard answers. “Why? What trouble you got?”

“No trouble, sir,” John shrugs. “I wanted a word with someone on the property. About the Braithwaite horses.”

“Yeah? And what would the _Grays_ know about the _Braithwaite_ horses?”

“We got sold a raw deal down here, mister, and was herded elsewhere like cattle ‘cause of them Braithwaites. Took every bit of our land, every blade of grass. Ruined our lives it did—” he turns to Bonnie. “Me and my partner. Now I don’t know about you, mister, but the way I see it, it ain’t right. So, we folk wanna see it right, and we hear you boys’ll help us do just that.”

That left the guard silent, thinking, until he squints at them both. “Lots of trouble you folk putting yourselves into.”

“Any trouble for them Braithwaites is no trouble for us,” John tells him. “Now, who’s my man?”

The man scans them one more time until he finally points out their way. “Tavish Gray, out by the stables.”

With that, John tips his hat— “Gentlemen.”— and trots on, Bonnie following behind.

They reach the stables soon and it turns out there is a Tavish Gray there, an old and weathered man who looked to have been around during the Stone Age. Still, when John and Bonnie tethered their horses aside by a lonesome tree, John makes sure to confirm it is really him. “Mr. Tavish Gray?”

The old man looks up, eyes beady and bush-like brows furrowing. “Yes?”

So, it is him. John walks forward with his hand out for him to shake. “My name’s John Marston,” he nods. Tavish Gray does take his hand after enough consideration. After, John uses his free hand to present Bonnie behind him. “This here’s Miss Bonnie MacFarlane.”

He sees the way the old man’s face shifts at her, as if she isn’t meant to be with them. However, when she seems to ignore it, so did John. “We come from the west,” he begins. “We made an investment in the railways there, but that didn’t work out well. We came here in hopes of a second chance at profit.”

“Why here?” Gray speaks with suspicion. “I know they’ve talked about how the war has left us. There ain’t much left to profit from.” Then he makes himself solemn with his own words. “My family try, my sons, but it’s been hard. I got a feeling some folk in this area will hold us back forever.”

John feigns ignorance. “How you mean?”

That earns him a look. “You haven’t heard of the Braithwaites? That hag and her inbred sons?” Old man goes from grooming his horse to flopping down on a chair. “They’ve kept this land _festering_ with hate— and I hate them for it. We Grays, we’re an old Scottish family; we work. But they… they’d steal a coin off a dead man’s eye. Damn barbarians. They killed my uncle you know.”

John frowns. “Well, that ain’t right. You know, we’ll help you mister. Help you get your revenge— both of us. Anything for good pay.”

“Pay is the least of our problems,” Gray grumbles, then he goes right back to suspicion. “It’s odd that you should be so eager. You hardly know what you’re getting into.”

“You can trust us, mister,” John insists, canting a look at a nodding Bonnie. “We’re good people. Like you.”

“You don’t know me,” Gray went on, pointing a low and wobbling finger. “I’ve seen you turn up in this town and helping everybody. And everywhere, there’s troubles. Who are you?”

John isn’t sure how he knows all of that, but he doesn’t allow it to break him. “Like I said, we had a run of bad luck in the west, lost some money on a failed railway speculation. We heard good folk can do well in this country.”

Then the trotting of a horse arrived outside, finally: Arthur. He comes walking toward them and John makes introduction. “Take it from my other partner, Arthur Morgan. Have you met him, Mr. Gray?”

The old man scans him and says “no”.

“I met your son,” Arthur tells him. “The sheriff?”

“Okay.”

“Mr. Gray here was saying he had problems with a family,” John turns to Arthur. “A family of degenerates.”

Arthur puts on a frown. “Well, nobody likes degenerates.”

Gray mimics that frown, though it’s real and even deeper. “That crone and the monkeys she birthed,” he grumbled some more. “They ruin this county. But the problem is we can’t be seen to get too close.”

Finally, some _beneficial_ warbling. John quirks a brow. “And?”

Now the old man, back hunched and tone serious, stands. “We’ve got _gold,_ Yankee. We’ve got _gold.”_

“I ain’t no Yankee, friend,” John frowns at him. “I ain’t nothing. My daddy came over on the boat from Scotland.”

“I’m Scottish.”

“And the Braithwaites?”

Once again, just hearing the name made him scowl like he ate a bad oyster. “—Goddamn _peasants!”_ he starts off, spitting. “Mongrels! Slave fuckers! All you got to do is _look_ at them…”

Arthur stops him before he starts again. “How much gold we talking here?”

“Enough,” Gray answers. “They’ve got good horses, _prized_ horses. Them, they’ll get you… five thousand.”

“Five thousand?” John almost laughs. “For _horses?”_ It sounds absurd.

The old man nods as if he is serious, however. “Easy.”

“And where do we sell them, these five thousand-dollar horses?” Arthur went on to ask.

“Over in Clemen’s Cove,” Gray answers. “Feller over there’ll run them out of state and give you fifty cents on the dollar.”

Well. He didn’t know them, so he has no reason to lie. Arthur seems pretty convinced too, and so does Bonnie, so with that, John has no choice but to hold out his hand. “Well, Mister, you got yourself a deal.”

Old man took it with earnest if that is more evidence of his talking true. John walks on to Old Boy at the end of that, Bonnie and Arthur following behind, when, “Just keep us away from this. Publicly, I mean.”

“My sense is we keep all horse rustling away from the public,” John answers Gray, then him, Bonnie, and Arthur are all on their horses and trotting away. Old Gray yelled after them where to go: southside of the manor, where the thoroughbreds were, apparently their best horses.

They trot and gallop around the twists and turns of the plantation’s roads before they meet the long path again, John riding point this time. When they are out of the guards’ hearing ranges, Bonnie scoffs. “Ambitious old feller, ain’t he?”

Arthur chuckled. “You should see the Braithwaite woman.”

“Any idea how we’re gonna play this?” John asks Arthur.

“The place is well-guarded, so there ain’t no point in blasting in there,” he replies. “I reckon we make them think we’re looking to purchase.” 

“Three armed folk?” John questions.

“You’d be armed if you was about to spend that much money on horses,” Arthur says. “We should go in the backway, though, avoid too many questions.”

“Southside of the manor,” Bonnie adds. “That’s what he said, right?”

Arthur nods. “Yeah, nice and easy. No need to rush and potentially draw in unnecessary attention to us.”

After that, it’s quiet, before Bonnie speaks again. “On that note, may I take the lead this time?”

Both men turn their heads from the road. “You?” John goes.

“I know y’all have stolen more horses than you’ve bought,” she says. “Remember I’m a ranching girl, lived in country where buying horses was all you did. I just think it’ll be easier and quicker if a person who’s actually done some buying talked, that’s all.”

“Well alright then, Miss MacFarlane,” Arthur says, a chuckle in his voice. “If you think you can do it.”

“Well of course she can,” John butts in. “Just... didn’t think you would, miss.”

He can hear the smile in her voice. “Y’all should have more faith.”

A minute after their conversation, they reach the Braithwaite manor after galloping down the scenic route. A guard at the back gate slows their horses, and Arthur turns to Bonnie, in a whisper. “He’s yours, miss.”

She trots past John and stops her horse in front of the guard. Her mount stands tall despite it being a smaller horse. The man’s expression goes all types of ways, ranging from confused to intimidated. A funny thing. “Can I help you, ma’am?”

“Yes, me and my boys here, we’re here to see about some horses?”

“Horses, ma’am?” 

“Yes, I had an appointment with someone here, a Mr. Braithwaite, if I remember correctly…”

“I’m afraid I ain’t heard any of this—”

“My partner wanted to make a significant investment in the stables down here,” she interrupts him, but with his eyebrows remaining so closely tied, she shrugs. “But I suppose me, and my boys’ll have to look elsewhere.”

“Well—I—” the guard stumbles, but eventually he finds them opening the gate. “H—Head on down to the stables! Someone’ll come see ya’.” 

“Thank you.” She trots on, with her old guard behind her. The stables are reached after a few more gallops, and when there, they hitch their mounts at the front. There is a stable hand waiting for them at the entrance, one Bonnie approaches with cordiality despite of the men who brood and tower her.

“Good afternoon, sir!” she beams.

When the hand looks up, his face goes all different ways like the man before, but it ultimately ended nastily. John watches him, standing closer to Bonnie.

Meanwhile, he speaks up. “Can I help you, lady?”

“I sure hope so,” she continued to smile. “I heard you got horses.”

His face twists even more. “We always got horses.”

_“Fine_ horses, I mean.”

“I don’t get you, lady.”

“Oh yes you do,” she giggles. “Now come on now, don’t be coy.”

He looks up again from the saddle he brushes. John thinks Bonnie has reeled him in until— “Listen, why don’t you get on out of here, huh? You, the pig-headed guy, and Scarface. I don’t like officials.”

_Scarface?_ As if John didn’t have enough reason to sock him upside the head. Bonnie pretends she didn’t hear him, however. “We aren’t officials, sir,” she says. “We’re connoisseurs looking to do some breeding!”

The man still isn’t budging, but Bonnie is patient. “Oh, come now, mister,” she says sweetly.

He looks up staring, and it takes him too long to throw his brush aside realizing he couldn’t win. “Okay, fine. Follow me.”

This they do. Arthur is looking around, for any sign of trouble or extra surveillance. John lets Bonnie work her magic but is still eyeing the stable hand. Meanwhile, he talks, and she listens. “This here’s mainly the studs, available for purchase or for working, if that’s what you’re interested in. What are you folks interested in?”

“Uh— we represent a reputable stable and stud farm from New Austin, sir,” Bonnie replies.

“Is that so?”

“Unofficially, yes.”

Again, he looks at her, twisting his face something funny, but walks to the horses, nonetheless. It irks John still, to see him try so hard at making Bonnie crack, to chastise her. And as if _Scarface_ weren’t enough…

He goes to this stallion, coat richly brown. “This here’s Cerberus,” he introduces as he hands him a bit of hay. “Cerberus is a real reliable stud. Fathered many a race winner.”

Bonnie mouths an “ah”, hands behind her back and interested. That’s the last horse he introduces before it’s his last word, however, when John swings his arm around his neck and twists it something good.

Even when the horses reel and Bonnie yelps, John can’t help gritting his teeth at the lifeless body he tosses to the floor. _“Scarface,_ huh?”

He hears Arthur groan, but Bonnie glares at him, hand on her chest. “Mr. Marston!” she hisses. “You’d have done better giving me a doggone signal!”

John meets her eyes and admits honestly: “Ain’t like the way he was treating ya’.”

She pauses, fear being replaced with something else. Flattery? John couldn’t tell though when Arthur came running in soon after, bandana already on. “Cover up, you two; we don’t need nobody recognizing us!”

John does and Bonnie too when she’s handed an extra. Arthur begins to direct: “I’ll get the one in the middle, y’all get the other two.” The horses needed calming before they could be led, which they did their best. Once each person had reins in their hands, Arthur continued. 

“Marston, you’re gonna tether them up to Miss MacFarlane’s horse. Miss MacFarlane, you lead the stallions. Me and Marston’ll cover you. If there’s any problems, we regroup at Clemen’s Cove.”

John nods and Bonnie too, then they got to work. John ties all reins tight to Bonnie’s saddle as she mounts up. With that done, John jogs to Old Boy, and Arthur to Edith. Things rolled smoothly and they were on their way to leaving quietly, when—

_“What are you doing?!”_

A Braithwaite caught them. At his yell, spurs are drilled hard into their mounts and they galloped off at full speed, letting the road guide them for now. John, along with Arthur, shot Bonnie space as rich and poor men come spilling out of the house and onto the paths. Arthur shoots at anything that moved— riders, men on foot—though John merely killed for Bonnie’s sake.

They reached the long drag at the front of the house. Men came from the fields now but were picked off. Things only got complicated when a wagon of more men blocked the drag, and they barely missed bullets as they made a desperate turn for the fields. 

They zig-zagged through the trees to lose them, and for a moment they did as hush replaced pops and cracks. However, in the wake of their emerging from the trees, more men greeted them on the road. Thankfully only a few at a time, a number that Arthur could quickly diminish.

Finally, the hush returned, this time lasting. Arthur breaks it first. “Y’all see any more of them?”

“Don’t think so!” John hollers back. “Bonnie, are you okay?”

“I’m fine!”

“Alright,” Arthur says. “Let’s get these horses to Clemen’s Cove quick before we run into any more trouble.”

“My word,” Bonnie’s sigh is exasperated and shaky. “Could that not have gone smoother?”

Arthur’s chuckle sounds tired. “That’ll be on my gravestone.”

Things were quieter though, so that is good. Apart from one of the stallions getting excited and needing recovery after galloping off, the ride to Clemen’s Cove is smooth and quiet until the end. There is this pair, looked to be brothers, leaning against the gate of their farm when they get there. They stop their horses, Arthur, and John dismounts, while Bonnie remains in her saddle.

One of them, the lithe one, is reading a book when he finally takes notice of them. “What you boys want?”

“Heard you pay good prices for horses,” Arthur answers him. 

“Oh, we’ll buy more or less anything, pop.”

John answers this time. “Is that so?”

“Sure, pop,” he nods before he begins introducing himself. “I’m Clay Davies,” he says, then points to the wandering one next to him. “This is my brother Clive. We’re twins.” He waves at his introduction, muted but seemed friendly. 

John makes introductions when the latter man is done. “John, Arthur, Bonnie MacFarlane.” 

Clay hops up from the gate at his point to Bonnie. “A woman, huh?” He walks to her with an odd suave, aimed to flirt and it irks John a tad. “What, you get bored of making cherry pies all day?”

John’s about to speak for her, but then she replies: “No sir, I took to educating myself, reading books, things some discouraged folk ain’t willing to.”

“I read too, missy,” he says, obviously trying to flirt by the tone of his voice. “Ain’t you seen me reading when you brought you and your escorts here?”

Bonnie hummed. “That’s funny.”

“Why’s that?”

“A worthier book would’ve taught ya’ a better insult.”

John quirked a smile at her response; she needs no saving. That Clay chuckled too, points at her. “You’re funny—” then looks at his brother. “She’s funny. Ain’t she funny, Clive?”

Clive smiled, toothily and awkward-like, but ultimately too invested in the book in his hands. Clay spoke for him then. “Clive don’t talk. We’re twins, but I was born first. He came out all yellow and black, but he’s okay.”

Explained his behavior then. “Sure.” John is itching to get the man back on topic, but he trudged there himself, to the horses standing idly and chewing at the grass.

“Yeah, I know these horses,” he says as he examines. “They ain’t yours, but I like ya’, and I’ll give ya’...” 

He trails off in thought, lonesome finger tapping his chin before— “I’ll give ya’ six-hundred and fifty for them.”

Less than a quarter of what they were promised. They all scoff but it is John who voices their plight. “I was told we could get up to _five thousand dollars_ for them.”

“And I was told the moon was made of ladies’ tears, only it ain’t true,” Clay spits back. “Not one little bit.”

“But—”

“I like you folks,” Clay interrupts. “But I ain’t got more than seven hundred on me. You want it, or you wanna ride them into town and have someone there hang ya’?”

“We’re gonna need more than that,” Arthur insisted. 

“I ain’t got no more money, pop,” the man insisted too, and is proven right when he throws a bill of that exact amount into John’s hands. “Take it or leave it,” he finishes. 

John stares at it, calloused finger thumbing through the paper and thinking, before he shrugs. “Alright.”

Arthur turns to him, glaring. “You goddamn _fool,_ Marston!”

Clay continues to speak. “Ain’t no one ‘round here got five thousand dollars, folks, but nice meeting ya’.” His brother takes the team of horses and he follows with a malicious smirk. “See you folks again I hope.”

They walk off and John is met by Arthur’s persistent scowl before he mounts up. John now dreads the ride back to camp, and he finds he had good reason to within five minutes of the ride. “Seven hundred dollars out of five thousand,” Arthur grumbles. “Thought we was doing the robbing here.”

“It’s better than nothing,” John says. “And shit, how was I supposed to know?”

“Thanks for giving it your best then,” Arthur frowned. “Can’t herd, can’t swim...”

John’s frown is nasty, about to bite back, but Bonnie groans. “Will y’all give it a rest? Ain’t never seen such grown men fight like children.”

John hums at that. “Never really got the chance to be children.”

The rest of the ride is silent at that, with their focuses shifting on getting home in the waning hour. They reach camp by sundown, hitching and tethering their horses at the same spots they mounted them.

John starts conversation then, after a moment without it. “‘Least Miss MacFarlane did well,” he looks at her smiling. “Ain’t ya’, miss?”

“I did what was necessary,” she smiled back, waving him off. “Just wish there could’ve been more money.”

“So do I,” Arthur sighs. John shrugs. 

“Well, you can’t win them all, I suppose,” Bonnie says, then she starts her walk away. “I best get back to it then. I’ll see you ‘gents later.”

Her gaze lasts on John though. Walks with a poise and stares with intent that makes his stomach flutter. He can only smile back, for his reactions to it all has left him stuck, unable to speak or wave. It’s only when the look breaks that he’s able to move again, and even then, he can only drop his head and shuffle his feet in the dirt. He’s not sure what to make of the hold she’s got on him, but it’s mean, and new. _Excitingly_ new.

“What’s your game with her?”

Arthur’s remark snaps John out of it. His angled brows furrow at him. “What you mean?”

The man frowns. “You know what I mean.”

Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. Things have been said and held back between them, of that he doesn’t doubt, but he does know where they stand. With that, he tells Arthur, “I ain’t got no game. We’re just friends, me and her.”

“Who you trying to convince, Marston?” Arthur spits. “I seen you staring at her, the way you talk to her, and all these weeks, following her around like some lackey. What you think Abigail makes o’that, huh?”

Hearing her name, his jaw squares. “Like I said, just a friend,” he says slowly so he would comprehend. “Ain’t nothing more to it, you hear?”

A pause comes, filled with the glares they share, until Arthur holds up a finger. “I’m gonna hold you to that.” Then he finally turns on his heel, joining the rest of camp.

John watched the back of his head and thought no more of it except that they both have their own affairs and businesses; Arthur’s got no right getting into his. 

Bonnie is scrubbing her shotgun so much she’s sure she is bound to wear the finish at any moment. The skies are growing rosier, camp noise is waning, and her eyes are adjusting to the constant image of her gun. All the while, a rough voice and black hair and brown eyes kept flashing behind her eyelids.

Bonnie remembered thinking nothing of John. He was an idiot outlaw without purpose, essentially a drifter. Then, she spends time with him, talking and joshing, and suddenly he is one of the best men she’s ever known outside of her dear departed father. It’s familiar, something she felt for the passing ranch hand back in the day or a striking stranger on the road, but this time it lingers. Bothers her when she blinks, thinks, feels… It follows her everywhere.

However, she never cared for getting too far in her head with things, so thinking of it ends quickly in a simple shake of her head and the discarding of her gun, sitting it in a spare wagon. While everyone is either reading or off in their heads somewhere, the horizon is a beautiful sight on the northern shore of Clemen’s Point, so beautiful Bonnie thinks she’ll go and gaze at it.

With that, she gets her closer look after a walk, sitting down with her knees in her arms and basking in the sounds of the calm shoreline, the sound of the birds growing tired and the crickets growing alive, and the sound of approaching footsteps.

She turns her head, finding it’s the footsteps of a person who only just made her head spin. “Afternoon, Mr. Marston.”

He’s making her head spin now with his merely approaching, but she tries to mask it in a cordial smile. Meanwhile, his walk is sluggish, and it could only be the fault of guard duty, however his chuckle is with life. “You don’t much like calling me _John,_ do ya’?”

She must chuckle too at that while he takes the spot beside her on the shore. After that, the skies and the calming atmosphere leave them quiet for a moment until John picks up conversation again. “You know, you did real well today. I mean it,” he says. “I told Arthur you’d be alright.”

“I keep saying it weren’t nothing,” Bonnie insists with modesty. “I rustled horses, that’s all.”

“You can also talk a hound off a meat wagon, and we both know you can fight,” John continues to dote. “Reckon you could run it alone no problem.”

“I know _you_ could,” Bonnie replies. “I hear what they say about you; one of the best fit men in this bunch. They even say you’re Dutch’s favorite.”

He looks at her with awe, an awe that makes her laugh. _“Favorite?_ Folks still care about that?”

“Everyone’d die to have Dutch’s special attention, even for a second,” she giggles. “I am beginning to see that.”

She feels a look on her temple and hears a smile in John’s reply. “And you wouldn’t?”

She turns to him, answering. “He’s done me enough already. Given me food and shelter when I lost everything, my home, my family, my world. I reckon that’s enough attention to be goin’ on with…” Then in her talking, she trails off, for the first time without a heavy heart. “It feels odd talking of what I’ve lost now, it really does.”

She thought John would pick their talk back up, but his thoughts seem to have carried him away as well. “I’m sure.”

The crickets and the lake’s waves take up all the sound again until Bonnie gains an itch to tell a story. When she begins, she’s happy to know she has all of John’s attention.

“We were gonna buy this plot of land, you know, up in Hennigan’s Stead,” she tells him. “I remember the land was very fine; horses as far as the eye could see, plenty of land to till, and plenty of privacy too. I remember me and my folks camped in the area one time, fishing out of the Montana River, and my brother—rest his soul —he ain’t had any clue what to do…”

She begins laughing thinking of that time, and so did John. “He didn’t?”

“Oh, honey, no. I’m trying to tell him what to do, ‘cause we had those baits that looked like actual little fish, so you have to keep moving them. My brother got the gist of that, and he was doing okay until he got something on the hook. Then the boy started freaking out!”

John giggles. “Freaking out?”

“Freaking out! His line gets to quivering, he’s thinking it’s some monster from the devil, you know, ‘cause he used to read _way_ too many novels, but we’re telling him to tug and hold on! But he was so scared out of his wits that he let the fish have it and he ends up getting dragged into the water! I mean falls right in there, getting a face full of dirt and grime!”

Then they both erupt in a fit of laughter. “Poor kid,” John says. “Was he the oldest or the youngest?”

“Oldest boy,” Bonnie answers him. “But younger than me. A spoiled child too, God rest his soul.”

“Ah, I can’t blame the boy,” John chuckles. “I was a guinea a minute young too.”

Bonnie giggles at him now. “Really?”

“Really,” John nods, beginning his own story: “I had a similar experience like your brother had too, only we was hunting elk, Arthur and I. Hosea was there too, trying to teach me how to shoot a rifle. And I got it in my hand, had my handling right and everything, but ended up bashing myself straight in the head ‘cause I ain’t had no control over that kickback.”

That makes a guffaw come out of Bonnie, even when she asks, “How old were you?”

“Golly, ‘bout… ten, eleven,” John answers. “And Arthur was laughing his tail off at me. I remember I couldn’t stop crying, face bleeding, and he was rolling on the floor...”

They laugh together again, though Bonnie’s laughter carries a bit of sympathy knowing John’s age at that time. “You poor thing— Mr. Morgan should’ve helped.”

But John waves her off. “Nah, he shouldn’t have, I needed that learning,” he says. “And anyway, Arthur’s always been heartless like that.”

Bonnie chuckles at him. “Well, I suppose that made for a rough childhood.”

And John chuckles right back. “It sure as shit did…”

Then suddenly, from behind them: “It’s party time! I just won a bunch of money!”

Hosea, beaming as if he wanted to take the sun’s place in the sky. His hands were full of crates of whiskey, calling people over once he reached a table. Karen, Pearson, Javier, anyone who walked by and anyone who looked his way until one man became a flock, and one grin became many.

“What’s goin’ on?” Karen asks, and Hosea puts it bluntly but beautifully.

“I cheated at cards, my dear, like a proper gentleman!”

The group laughs, praises and hoots, and once Hosea turns to face the spectators John and Bonnie, he has that whole group beckoning them over. “You two! Join us! Have yourselves a drink!”

That request isn’t a hard one to follow when, as they look at each other, there comes a mutual shrug of “why not?”

A light drink did eventually become a party once Dutch returned from town and encouraged music. Uncle had his banjo, Javier had his guitar, and Mrs. Adler had her harmonica. Whiskey, beer, and gin were all over camp, and naturally everyone chugged it down like the first drink of water to a parched throat.

Bonnie limited herself to two bottles of beer, a habit with the way she had been raised, though with John Marston, everything is suddenly possible. The two of them talked and hanged around with the rest of the gang for a good moment until they drifted away to sit themselves down at an empty table. Bonnie brought extra bottles of gin with her to said table for a reason she couldn’t really name, and she couldn’t name the reason why John did the same either.

Silence sits between them for a while, the only noise coming from John when he clears his throat, probably at the burn his whiskey left in his throat. He speaks to Bonnie a moment after: “I bet you still miss them. Your folks.”

“Every day,” Bonnie nods, then takes a drink of her gin. She’s not sure why him saying that stings when she thought she finished grieving.

“And you ain’t got no one else? No sisters, no more brothers?”

“Oh, no. My mama died a long time ago, to cholera. And five of my brothers died either from sickness or foolishness. After that, it was just me, Patrick, and my Pa. They’re gone too though, so I’m all on my own now. Got no one left… Well—” she pauses to correct. “Except you folks, I suppose.”

_Except you,_ she meant to say. She’s glad she didn’t though and blames the thought on the gin. Meanwhile, she asks John the same question: “What about you? You’ve got family, right?”

“Nah. My momma died too, having me, and my father was blinded in a bar fight some place south of Chicago,” he tells her. “I do have this lot as a family. Arthur, Dutch, Hosea, and…”

He trails off, unfortunately for a while. Bonnie slopes her head at him. “And?”

But he just looks up to stare, only until he grabs his bottle again. “Nothing.”

He takes a mean gulp out of that bottle, something that Bonnie finds uncanny, but she nods nevertheless, picking conversation back up: “What was your daddy like?”

John scoffs at the question. “Just an illiterate Scot born on the boat into New York,” he answers. “Never saw his homeland, but he’d always talk about it, like all folks would do there is eat haggis and wear kilts. He also hated the English for what they’d done to his great grandparents he ain’t ever met. He wasn’t no forgiving man, but then again folk ain’t too keen on forgiving to begin with. Nor forgetting.”

Bonnie frowns at his speech. “You sound like some of the folks ‘round here, talking about what happened at Blackwater, and how y’all won’t ever be able to live that down…”

He pauses again, to stare down the neck of his whiskey bottle. “Dutch says they’ll stop caring with time, and if we stick together, but… he talks a lot of drivel. I don’t know, I guess I just ain’t too sure no more.”

Bonnie feels that he may be right, though the words still cut through her deep enough to discourage her spirit. “They say we owe it to Dutch to stick together, seeing as he saved us all.”

“’Course he did, but we don’t know,” John looks up at her. “We don’t know if we’re gonna make it to that ‘paradise’ he keeps goin’ on about, we don’t know if we’re gonna atone for our sins, we don’t know nothin’ but we’re gonna get shot for ‘em. It’s just a question of _when.”_

A sad, cut-throat reality he has spewed there. Bonnie couldn’t reply with much, only sit and play with the label on her gin bottle. Then she lets out something like laughter. “Quite a testimonial…”

So does John, lifting his bottle to his lips. “Hopefully by the end of all this, if there is an end, we can move on, and start over,” he says. “Hell, you can pick your life back up as a rancher again, Lord willing.”

He forces a smile out of Bonnie. “Perhaps,” she says. “What about you? What will you do if you could start over?”

He pauses, to think it over, then, “You wouldn’t mind me ranching with you, would ya’?”

Meeting his gaze, she finds softness in his eyes. The softest they’ve ever been, and it flutters Bonnie’s heart. She can only smile at it. “Not at all.”

He smiles right back. “Glad to hear it.” And raises his bottle for a toast.

With that, they clink their drinks and finish them off. Bonnie’s intent is to leave things at that, as the hours are becoming ungodly and the party is getting quiet. However, the gin burned just right in her chest, and the whiskey gave her a peace she thought she’d never get. Meanwhile, she stayed up and talked with John about her past and his past, about their happy tales and their sad tales, while the number of bottles around them grew.

Each one makes Bonnie incandescently happy. Her cheeks begin to hurt because John is _so funny,_ even though he is a bad influence when every bottle he finishes, she finishes another, but every drop feels damn good. John must have been feeling good too when he sways the way he does, leans the way he does, giggles so contagiously to himself the way he does…

But Bonnie could feel her feet losing feeling on the ground, jitterbugs crawling up and down her spine… Her hand struggles on its way to John’s forearm.

“Hey, we gotta—” a burp comes up but thankfully dissolves in her chest, then she pats on him. “W—We gotta slow down, on this hooch.”

She can barely make out his lingering, loopy smile shifting into a pout. “Why? You, you don’t wanna drink with me?”

“What? _Noooo,_ I love to drink with ya’,” her words run together, something she can’t help when she can vaguely feel her face. “I just… I think I done had enough for tonight, honey—”

Her hand on his forearm gets pushed away. “You don’t like me,” he begins grumbling. “I’m too… lowly and miserable and ugly for the likes o’you—”

“No, no, no— John.” She puts the hand back. “John, I—I love you…”

Now she’s got his attention, in the form of the biggest doe eyes she has seen on a person. “I love you too, Bonnie…” then his hand, huge and a little clammy, covers her own like a quilt. “You know, you’re… you’re really, _really_ pretty.”

He leans in close, close enough for Bonnie to see his _huge_ pupils and to smell the liquor that wafts from his breath. Even when drunk, she resists urges. “You’re drunk, you… s—stupid man.”

She slips her hand away from him, though it’s yanked right back. “No, I mean it, you’re… you’re so pretty, and fine, and funny, and gorgeous—”

“And you’re stupid! Stupid, and funny, and… naughty you are.”

“Oh, I’m _naughty,_ am I?”

“Yeah, you’re naughty, you’re…” she tries again at pulling away, but not _really_ trying. “You’re dumb and drunk and naughty.”

He snickers at her, eyes bouncing from her lips to her neck, then, as low as ever, “I’ll show you naughty.”

Suddenly lips seize her neck, wet and passionate, and it has her squirming and hollering until they begin to tickle. They begin to kiss and rumble and nibble and Bonnie couldn’t help her laugh, big-mouthed and loud. Her arms embrace him and once again, everything is well.

_“Marston! What the hell are you doin’?!”_

She jumps at that voice: _Arthur_. Somehow, John doesn’t, and continues to kiss under her tie, calling out. “Go away, Arthur! I’m with my woman!”

Those words are enough to soothe Bonnie again, making her hum and grin and put an even tighter grip on his shoulders.

Then he’s yanked away, at a force that almost takes her with him onto the ground until a hand, hard and strong, grips at her arm and pulls her on her feet. She looks up. 

Arthur, again. 

“Just friends, huh?” he yells at John, then he turns them both on their heels and after the wilderness. She struggles to keep up with what is happening while John, on the ground behind them, curses with a tongue like a razor.

Bonnie is stomped someplace for a long, long time, until she’s slung to the side. A tree is the only thing that catches her, and she looks at Arthur with bucked eyes. “What— what happened? What’d you go and do a thing like that for?”

He looks at her with daggers for eyes, then a finger comes pointing in her face. “You stay away from that fool Marston, understand?”

_“Why?_ What the hell’s he done wrong—”

_“Plenty!”_

The first time Arthur has roared at her, and it makes her jump. Then he stomps away.

Her eyes struggle but follow his stomping back into camp until he stops by this woman. Abigail, Bonnie thinks her name was. And they go back and forth for a while until Abigail ends it with a nasty look coming her way, then she too scurries away.

That woman has always talked about how horrible men are, how wrong a specific man has done her… Now Bonnie knows why, and it has her whiskey bottle slipping out of her fingers and falling to the ground with a shatter.

She’s been real foolish. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one comment = one internet kissy from yeterah 💋


	5. Friendship, For Idiots

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've only just realized this took two months to upload... yo. from me to you- yes you. you reading this... my fUCKING BA D
> 
> ok anyway. you got 8000+ words ahead of you.. aaaa sorry it's so long but a lot of SHIT GOES DOWN THIS CHAPTER OKAY (plus sumn juicy at the end so it'll be worth your while 👀.... i hope aaa)
> 
> I'LL SHUT UP PLEASE PLEASE ENJOY 💕💖💕💕💖💕💖💕💖💕💖💕

The sun is bright when Bonnie wakes up the next morning. Too bright. Shutting her eyes again did as much harm as opening them, really, when the bird’s chirping up above is loud enough to crack glass. With that, she has no choice but to get up and face the day, even when the effects of a hangover are harrowing.

She knew drinking herself to foolishness would be something she would regret, making herself sick to her stomach with the amount of alcohol she consumed and the amount of times she let herself get lost in John’s wit and smiles. He was playing her like a fiddle, and she wonders why in the hell he would do such a thing to her until she thinks about Abigail; he’s done it to women before. And all this time, Bonnie wondered why the woman griped so much about men, now she knows she has good reason. And all Bonnie did was fan the fire.

That alone is enough to make her want to cry yet slap herself silly all the same.

But the sun is high in the sky now, meaning the dawn of a new day, no matter how miserable she felt. With that, she trudges her way to the trees with her day clothes in hand before getting a cup of coffee, the trees that were at the rear of camp, where no one could possibly see her or talk to her or even _look_ at her.

No one except that Kieran, but maybe she didn’t mind that; he’s a sweet boy. He stands and tips his hat at her walking by him and his fire in fact. “Morning, Miss Bonnie.”

An action she was sure no one had the gall to do after what she’s done. She gives him a weak smile and nod. “Morning, Kieran.”

She continues her way into the thicket when— “You know, I—I don’t know what everyone’s fussing about. I think you and John look well together, if ya’ ask me.”

Bonnie almost smiles at that. Almost. “It ain’t that,” she tells him. “It’s that he has a woman, and ain’t told me.”

The color from Kieran’s face hightails. “…Miss Abigail?”

Bonnie nods. “Miss Abigail.”

Then the color comes back to Kieran’s face, making him glow with red. “Oh… I’m—I’m sorry, I—I should’ve stayed out of it. Sorry.” And he sits back down by the fire, his back turned toward her.

Sweet, sweet boy. He makes her smile, however somberly. “Don’t be, Kieran. If anyone’s to blame, it’s me for being a fool. All me.” Then she too turns her back on him, into the thicket to change. She feels his lingering look on her neck however, and she’s sure it is one of pity.

Camp is in its usual hustle and bustle when she returned from the trees, dressed, and prepared for the day. Because of the occasional eye and whisper, however, she chose a far campsite to seek refuge and coffee at. She isn’t surprised at it, just isn’t ready to face it.

But she’ll have to, especially when she reaches her preferred fire and the person there has her freezing in her tracks. She’d have turned back around but then as soon as she steps up, he met her gaze.

He smiles at her. “Figured you’d be up late too.”

John.

Bonnie seldom returns that smile, staying where she is instead. She watches him sit his coffee cup down to grab another, then he looks up. “Cup of coffee?”

He has the cup out for her, as if expecting a yes. Bonnie figured it would have been awkward to say no, so, she nods and takes it. “…Thank you.”

With that, she takes one sip and is about to leave with the patch of silence that comes, but John strikes conversation just in time. Like he knew she would try to scurry off.

“I wonder if you’ve met Trelawny yet, the city boy all dressed up like a sore toe?”

Bonnie swallows before answering. “No.”

“Strange one, that Trelawny. He comes and goes, oftentimes without a trace. Only pops up when he’s got himself caught up in a scrape. I ain’t too sure why Dutch still deals with him. I sure wouldn’t. But folk keep saying he’s got his uses.”

“I ain’t formed an opinion on him, I’m afraid—”

“They tell me Bill, Micah, and Sean have gone out too, with Arthur. Think they said the Grays’ was looking for security. Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen with the three of them at the helm if you ask me.”

He tickles himself, and Bonnie fears he’ll keep talking if she doesn’t keep her answer short. “I’m sure Arthur will keep them in line.” Then she slips away.

But it still didn’t help when— “Speaking of Arthur, I—I… Uh…” she hears him stepping closer. “Last night was—”

“Something else! I know…” she turns to face him, and he’s close enough to have her backing up. “Let’s, uh, let’s leave that behind us, shall we, Mr. Marston?”

There is a sudden withdrawal in his expression and a low “sorry” escapes him. She leaves no time for herself to accept it, not when watching his spirit deaden like that makes her heart sink to her knees. Even so—

“I don’t— I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable, Bonnie.”

“Ain’t said all that, Mr. Marston,” she swings back around, her hand out to stop herself from freaking out more than him. “Only I’m just… Let me get my coffee in, then we can talk another time, a’right?”

One more attempt at walking away, but John… “I—I was just gonna say I hope it don’t… change nothing between us, what happened last night. I know what I said and what I did was… strange, but we’s still friends, right?”

She doesn’t want to be friends after last night. When John wooed her with jokes and peppered kisses on her neck, it gave her a high she couldn’t compare any other to. It felt right, like she belonged there, which was disgraceful and dangerous; any more time she spends with John and she knows she’ll keep feeling those lips on her nape, and will keep that smile and personality tucked in her mind until it makes her hope again. But the way he looks at her now, with obvious regret and remorse…

She opens her mouth to reassure, but nothing comes. There is still a respectable woman inside her, wrestling with desire and dreams.

But she didn’t have to respond, not when loud gallops of heavy horses and voices come roaring in, something she thanks God for.

It is Bill Williamson and Micah, going back and forth. All the while, young Sean is nowhere to be seen, nor Arthur. Meanwhile, Bill and Micah’s argument is enough reason to spawn a curious leader with his curious gang members, that includes Bonnie and John.

Dutch says what is all on their minds. “What’s goin’ on?”

They dismount, and after, Micah points a finger at Bill. “You tell him, fat man.”

“Fat man” fires back. “No, _you_ tell him. It was your goddamn plan!”

“And it was you who let it fall to shit!”

“Bullshit, ya’ bastard— and real rich!”

“Will you two slow down and tell us what happened, _please?”_ Hosea suddenly interjects. “We’re all very anxious to know.”

It’s Tilly who voices what they’re all anxious about, however. “Where’s Sean and Arthur? What’s become of them?”

They both hush at that, one pacing and the other about to rub the skin off his face, until Bill finally answers her. “Well, Arthur’s fine, but… Sean, he’s—”

“He ain’t made it,” Micah finishes. “Those Gray boys killed him, and we had to run.”

Now they’re all at a loss for words, the only sound being the sway of the trees above. Bonnie looks at John when he’s let out a heavy sigh, one that she can’t help but mimic. Poor Karen, she needed holding that Mary-Beth and Tilly provided. Lenny too, from Hosea. It was a long while before anyone was able to speak again.

“Well, what the hell happened?” goes Javier.

“What do you think? They set us up,” Micah says after he too sighs heavy. “Whole goddamn town shot us to hell, put the law on us… ‘The hell we do to them, huh?”

Then Bill scoffs. “Burned their tobacco fields for one.”

“I ain’t ask you, Bill!”

“Did you fools bury him at least?” Miss Grimshaw blurts out before they start again. 

And Bill answers this time, tiredly. “Yeah, Morgan told us to bury him someplace quiet,” he points behind him, toward the path that led into the trees. “Figured up that road just there’d do.”

At that, Micah was wiping what looked to be muddied and bloody hands onto his jacket. They were both caked with dirt and blood, the blood of a poor kid dead way before his time. It had Dutch shaking himself and rubbing his temple. “I’m… so sorry,” he grimaces. “He was a good kid.”

Not Bonnie nor anyone else was in any mood to argue.

Then a frantic shuffling, louder than the trees’ swaying, goes to the right of them. All heads turn and meet Abigail, the woman Bonnie has disrespected in every sense of the word. She wants to look away, really, but the girl looks so frightened out of her wits and it leaves her curious.

It leaves Dutch curious too, accounting for his approaching her. “Abigail? Are you okay?”

Her quick steps stop to look at Dutch with bucked eyes, then she murmurs, “Jack’s gone…”

Now worry spreads to Dutch’s demeanor. “What do you mean ‘Jack’s gone’?”

The crowd huddles toward them, and a sudden edge holds in the air, an anxiety. Abigail continues to wobble out, “I’ve been looking everywhere for him, he’s…” then in that same moment she trails off, she starts off hollering. _“Jack!”_

Then Dutch faces the crowd with a mood matching that of the girl he just spoke to. “Everyone, help find Jack!” he shouts, voice breaking and pushing through them all. “Turn every stone, search every crevice! _Now!”_

Bonnie blinks and suddenly the crows has dispersed, and the voices that call out “Jack” become many. All the while, the cogs in her mind are still turning; is Jack the little boy that used to run and play around there? If so, poor Abigail…

But then she hears John curse under his breath and move just as frantically as Abigail. Suddenly, Bonnie’s heart stops.

Jack is John’s son. Abigail’s son. Their son.

If her heart wasn’t broken enough, that surely shattered it.

_“Move,_ Bonnie! We’ve got to find Jack!”

That’s Javier, running like the rest of them and looking under tables and behind tents and around boxes. That boy is important. He matters. Matters much more than Bonnie ever could.

Even so, she forces herself to lend support and to respect what John and Abigail have, even if with every box she flips and every object she unveils, her heart slips even further below her core.

They search late into the afternoon, until the skies have lost its blue and the sun is beginning to sink down the horizon. People have lost their voices, including Bonnie’s, and camp looked as if a tornado passed through it. All this work would be for nothing though, for Jack never turned up, and people were so worried that Dutch had no room to be. Instead, he became a soother and a peacemaker, at least until Arthur showed up.

Meanwhile, John is circling a tree, pacing. Abigail too, only inside a tent, and Bonnie kept with the crowd full of bowed heads and waning spirits until a horse’s trot came rattling into camp. Arthur, finally.

Dutch runs right to him, trying to explain what’s happened, trying to ask him if he’s seen the boy, but of course he hasn’t. Abigail has lost all sense, but Hosea gives out his theory; the Braithwaite family took him. Kieran’s seeing them slipping into camp _last night_ is his evidence. That is enough evidence to send Dutch stomping after his mount: “I will get that boy back so help me God,” he declared. “Right now!”

John, Arthur, and Hosea all follow him to the tethered horses until Bill trails behind with Charles, Lenny, and Javier. “You’re gonna need extra guns,” he adds.

Bonnie watches them all, unsure of why a feeling of uselessness joins a broken heart, but it has her grabbing for a repeater. “And me.”

Dutch turns to face her, but ultimately turns her down. “No, you stay here, guard this place with Micah and Kieran.” Then he turns back after his horse, along with the rest of them. John is late to it, however, because he is too busy reopening a wound with his stare on Bonnie. She breaks it before it does too much damage, to Micah and Kieran who were waiting on more instruction.

And after Dutch has the rest of them off with quick gallops and sheer determination, she gives it to them. “Kieran, honey, you can cover the rear, just up there—” she points after the road Bill pointed to long ago. “Me and Micah will cover up front. Anyone strange turns up, you fire, okay, son?”

“You got it, miss,” Kieran nods, then does what he’s told.

Meanwhile, Bonnie has to endure Micah’s chuckle. “You and me, is it, Miss MacFarlane? Reckoned you ain’t want near me with a ten-foot pole, but I see you’ve changed your tune.”

_“Shut up,_ Micah.” Then she leads him to their positions.

They remained there for a while, among the deep trees with the crickets that chirped and the jackrabbits that came to rustle out of the thicket. Nothing seemed to happen, yet Bonnie was still on edge, and all for the wrong reasons.

So many things to sort out in her mind. Another woman has had John’s love and his child, the child taken from them the very night that Bonnie chose to muddy the pool between them fooling with John. What’s even worse is that no matter how horrible it sounds, however much she longs to set things right, she wishes things were different. She envies Abigail, even after John’s act has been proven to be nothing but deceit from start to finish.

Maybe because she knows Abigail is the prettier woman. What is she, other than a plain and cold spinster with nothing left but the ambition to steal a man someone else ought to have? It’s no wonder John jumped ship so quick, changed his ways; Bonnie is pathetic fool, and she knows one could only love a fool for so long.

“What you thinking so hard about over there?”

Micah’s voice snaps her out of her thoughts, and it’s only then that she gets to straighten up her waning grip on her repeater and hold her once dipping head back high. “I’m watching,” she answers. “That’s what I’m doin’.”

“Ah, thinking of John, is ya’?”

She looks at him, only earning her a chuckle and not the silence she wants. “I understand, Miss MacFarlane,” he drones. “I’ve wanted Abigail for a _looong_ time. Maybe if the boy ain’t found, I can finally have her, then you can get John all to yourself.”

Bonnie turns away. “Don’t talk to me, you bastard.”

“Aw, come on, Bonnie, don’t deny it now! I seen you when them two was working together to find that boy. You looked like Juliet on awakening in the tomb—”

“I said don’t talk to me.”

He chuckles once again. “Only giving you my sympathies, miss. But there ain’t all hope that’s lost. Way I figure it, based on last night, I’m sure he’s got no qualms with letting you carry John Marston the Third.”

Her blood spikes and it makes her draw her gun, pointed dead between Micah’s eyes.

_“Wo-ah,”_ his hands fly up like white flags, laughing a laugh she longs to silence with a bullet. “I’m only needling you, Miss MacFarlane. I’m only needling you.”

_Dumb son of a bitch._ She’d have pulled the trigger, but what sounded like a militia came trotting down the path, the men. She holsters her gun as Dutch, riding point, approaches. Meanwhile, Micah asks, “Did you get him?”

The other horses came to a stop at his mount’s pause. Then, after a patch of silence and after Dutch’s sigh, “Angelo Bronte. They’ve given him to Angelo Bronte, in Saint Denis…”

With Bonnie’s gun slumping to the ground, she is sorry to hear it. She should’ve guessed when there was no little boy in sight, and they all came up wearing faces of a calvary who's just lost a war.

“You two head to bed, it’s getting late,” Dutch went on, disappointedly. “I need some rest— We all need some rest.”

With that, every one of them trotted on into camp with Micah following on foot. Everyone except John, who was riding shank and now dismounted; one of his hands is on Old Boy, and the other is combing sharply through his hair. He looks hopeless, confused, and lost. And Bonnie… She couldn’t resist lending support.

She walks up with a gentle hand to lay on his shoulder. “It must be true.”

Just as Dutch did, he sighs heavily. “Yeah. Old crone said there, or on the boat to… goddamn _Italy.”_

His hand falls to his forehead, probably throbbing and who could blame him? Bonnie shakes her head. “I’m so sorry, John…”

He doesn’t answer her, not until his hand has slumped to his side and he’s looking at her with eyes that are much too soft. “Thank you. For trying to help.”

She hates the way he says it, like it’s personal. Like the fact that _she’s_ helped is enough to put the whole world in a smile. “Of course. I know you’d do it for me, if ever I was in that same predicament.”

His words are only the beginning, to his eyes suddenly growing softer, to the distance between them beginning to close. His voice gets low and gruff when he parts his lips next, low enough to get straight to her bones. “Bonnie, I—”

“Dutch is— Dutch is right; we should rest up,” she backs up and nods, for both of them. “Gonna be a long day ahead, for all of us. Goodnight, Mr. Marston.”

She walks away, all the while desperately trying to calm a rapid heart. She hears nothing from John, only feels his eyes.

Perhaps that’s best.

* * *

Morning strikes and the whole camp is uptight. Not even a cup of coffee or a spare cigarette could cure it.

Midday follows. The sun’s beams are ugly on an anxious day, and camp members are strewn about keeping busy as well as thinking too much. Then some city boys come in armed to the teeth and it makes it no better. The law.

They came to make a deal that Dutch didn’t accept; that the gang will be spared and granted amnesty if they find someplace to lie low and allow Dutch to be taken in. That ended in the whole gang having to scare the two off with weapons, and one of the lawmen, Milton, cursing their names in a fiery ultimatum. Nevertheless, the problem lasted two minutes but took three days to solve; with the law now on their tail, Dutch had to think of somewhere else for them to go.

On Arthur’s recommendation, they settled for an old plantation house that rests in the swamps outside the eighth wonder of the world, Saint Denis. The air felt worse on the lungs than it did in Clemen’s Point, and mosquitoes were everywhere. One couldn’t go too far off the land without seeing a gator either, but Bonnie found something good in where they were; she didn’t have to sleep outside anymore, on hard, wooden planks.

A new day comes, and Bonnie starts it in the early hours of the morning. It is quiet with everyone is either drifting to sleep or already asleep. She wakes up with a lot already on her mind, but she gets on nevertheless, with a cup of coffee to calm her nerves. Doing chores around camp seems to maintain that calm too.

“Oh! Miss MacFarlane, there you are.”

Then called Dutch, who showed up when she finished at Pearson’s wagon. “Yes, Dutch?”

“I ought to tell John myself, but I reckon now is the time to be heading back,” he says, starting after his horse. “Would you run and tell John to meet me in Saint Denis as soon as possible?”

Bonnie trails him. “So, Jack is there then? In Saint Denis?”

“yes, thank God,” Dutch sighs relief as he gets his leg around his horse. “Now there’s just the drama of actually getting him back.” With that, he trots off, but not before leaving her with one last instruction: “Tell him ‘Flavian Street, opposite the park.’”

It doesn’t truly dawn on Bonnie that she’s going to have to talk to John until after he’s galloped away. However, with a few breaths and a moment to breathe, she manages to do it.

On her way to the house, in fact— “He’s only a boy! He ain’t even half-grown!”

“He’ll be alright!”

It came from the side of the house, from Abigail and John, respectively. She followed the sound for John, but Abigail’s voice only sought to unnerve her.

“If they so much as put a _bruise_ on him, I swear I’ll bring the fires of hell on ‘em myself! Ain’t like nobody else ‘round here’s up for the task!”

“We’ll get him back. I promise.”

Bonnie rounds the house’s corner and walks up on John’s hand gentle on Abigail’s arm. He’s giving her that same doe-eyed look he gave Bonnie the night they were drunk out of their wits, a sight that she hates breaks her heart.

She watches from a few paces away so as not to interrupt, but she does anyway with them unexpectedly looking up. At that, Abigail pushes John’s hand away and scoffs, pointing at Bonnie. “Bet she’s real happy, now that she’s got one less thing to worry about!”

A statement that hitches Bonnie’s breath. She sees the urge in Abigail to beat her and John both to shreds, and yet all she does is storm off. When she does, she’s wishing she should have.

Then John sighs. “I’m, um, I’m sorry about that. She talks a lot of mess, I’m…”

And Bonnie stops him— “Dutch says meet him in Saint Denis. Flavian Street, opposite the park.”— then leaves him to it.

She didn’t mean to come off so curt, only with Abigail’s statement, there came a guilt that rotted her from inside. She blames herself endlessly for the tear in John and Abigail’s relationship, for if Bonnie never turned up, they could’ve had a chance. If Arthur and Hosea had left her to die, John would have been catering to a sharp wife and a little boy to call family. This is all her fault.

She goes back to chores holding back the harrowing urge to burst into tears, yet she understands a simple thing; something has got to be done.

The day goes on, well into the wee hours of the night, and Dutch, John, and Arthur have not come back. Many around camp are calming Abigail in the meantime, and some are just waiting. Bonnie is one of the some, on the porch and anxiously waiting for one of those men to have a little boy in his lap. However, with the moon having been out for so long, Bonnie couldn’t help doubting. Couldn’t help thinking the worst, thinking they got themselves killed and the boy too.

Then, while her head rested in her hands, “Hey! I think I see Dutch!”

Looking up, it is true; Dutch rides in front with John and Arthur. He calls out, “Abigail! We got him! We got Jack!”

And so they did, the boy just to grinning in his father’s lap. Everyone flocked to see the boy, hugging him, and shuffling his hair, and his mother cries joyously… Even if Bonnie didn’t move from the porch, it is still a delight to see, and a relief.

She has her reasons for staying on the porch, anyway, the columns to keep her company. One thing is with the song and dance that breaks out, the gang looks like family and she wouldn’t stick her nose in that; she’d be an outsider if she did that, when she’s only been running with them a few months.

And John looks so happy, him and Abigail. They finally had the moment they ought to have, with their boy safe in their laps. She has her arms about his shoulders, and they sway together, looking fine and right. Watching them there, it makes Bonnie’s eyes want to swell with tears and she isn’t sure why.

Then she scoffs at herself. Who is she kidding? Of course she knows why.

Still, she stays on the porch, watching their party unravel until Javier finishes his wonderful song, the hollers and hoots die down, and everyone starts to drift their own little way. Once that happens, Bonnie figures she should drift away too.

She lights a candle inside the house, dark and lonely, and just as she preferred. She grabs herself a shawl and prepares for rest on a couch, dusty like it is, but it is quiet. Alongside a novel, it’s the perfect ailment for a heavy heart. 

“Mary-Beth.”

“John! How are you? I’m so happy for you and Abigail, so glad that Jack is back. It’s a blessing, if ever we deserved one!”

Their voices attract Bonnie’s attention, and she peers from the window that hangs above her.

“Thank you, thank you—” goes John. “Did I… Did I see Bonnie go inside just now?”

A looming suspense comes, and it almost kills her. She watches with bated breath now.

“Oh! Um, yes, I think she did go back inside! She did seem a little off, but I think while you and Arthur and Dutch were gone, she mentioned her head hurting. Either it’s that, or she had one too many!”

Mary-Beth is a sweet girl, Bonnie loves her to death, but she is telling John _entirely_ too much—

“Is that right?”

“Yeah.”

Now the man looks at the house, determined. “Right. Thanks, Mary-Beth.”

“No problem, John!”

Toward the house he comes. Bonnie bolts up, too fast and she almost trips on her shawl. That alone made her book fall on the floor, tumbling away from her and she’s cursing under her breath. She needs to get upstairs, Arthur’s room, _anywhere but here—_

“Bonnie.”

_“Oh!”_

She couldn’t get away in time. Couldn’t get away in time and now there’s John, staring at her under the house’s arch. He laughs, clipped and shortly. “Sorry… You, uh, heading to bed? You don’t wanna join us?”

She harrows down a heart racketing against her ribcage. “No thank you, I—I’m real tired, I think I’ll just rest.”

“You sure? I can bring you a drink if you want, come and sit with us—”

“No, no—” she stops him with a hand. “I’m fine, thank you.” She looks after the hallway, leading to the stairs. “Excuse me.”

She scurries off, book and shawl barely in her hands, but it didn’t matter; she’s determined to move quick before—

“Actually, can I talk to you a minute? I’ve been wondering on how or when to catch you, but here you is.” Then his footsteps draw closer to her back. “Been wondering how you been, what you’ve been up to?”

“Same as everyone else, I suppose,” she faces him, however much she hesitates to. “Working and worrying about that little boy… I’m… I’m glad he’s alright, that boy, honest.”

She sees a shift in his expression talking of him, something like disappointment, and not because of the boy. It makes her stomach clench, and so does his voice that once again hits that bone-chilling low: “Me too…”

Silence comes awkward and unnerving now, and Bonnie tries her hardest to escape it. “Well, you, um, oughta’ be with that boy, him and… Abigail. I’m just off to bed—”

“Thing is, we ain’t been talking as much anymore, you and me. It’s been worrying me.”

"We’ve, uh, scarcely had the time with all that’s been happening, Mr. Marston—”

“John.”

Her swallow echoes across the halls. “…John.”

In his drawing even closer, Bonnie backs up but cannot anymore when her back hits the wall. Now she’s jammed between peeling wallpaper and John’s gaze that attacks her core, causing her heart to beat at new speeds.

Voice low and for her only, he’s hovering over her when he speaks next: “You’ve been so strange with me. Why?”

“I—”

He inches closer, her mind a siren that screams danger and desire all at once. She can feel herself, her body, and lips, getting closer to his, and that alone is why she squeezes away. “I’ll say goodnight.”

She jogs up the stairs with abundant speed. She feels John’s gaze again even as she hops up the steps, a bait she wants to take, but she won’t. She can’t, if only for truth.

It doesn’t hit her until she’s there that she has nowhere to go at the top floor. Then she looks to Dutch’s room.

To hell with it, his bed will do.

* * *

Dutch’s bed was such an improvement on a dingy couch that it caused Bonnie to oversleep. Caused the man to laugh at her too, saying she got too drunk last night like many others. Perhaps it is best that he think that.

Noon came and she’d be doing what she usually does around that time, cleaning at Pearson’s wagon and helping where she could with chores until sundown. By then, she is walking back to the porch of the house for rest, expecting solitude but gets Sadie Adler, on one end of the front door and sharpening her knife.

Bonnie didn’t mind; she hasn’t spoken to her much anyway. So, she nods. “How are you today, Mrs. Adler?”

She looks up and nods back. “Good. How are you?”

Bonnie takes the seat on the latter side of the front door, crossing her legs and looking beyond the far trees. “I’m well, I suppose.”

And in looking beyond the far trees, into the orange and blue skies, a thought rears in her head that she voices: “Ever wonder how you got here? From polite society to this?”

That earns her a chuckle. “No,” goes Sadie. “I reckon my days in polite society are over.”

Well put, and her bringing her blade to scintillate in the light only gave it more truth. Still, Bonnie remains curious. “You don’t ever miss it?”

Then Sadie gives her a look, along with a guffaw. “What’s there to miss?” she says. “A thieving, conniving government? The unequal rights they put on us women? A man not knowing what to do a woman other than to throw her?”

She has fair points that Bonnie hums to. “I suppose you’re right,” she sighed. “Guess I just miss the tranquility of it all. The simplicity. The… the peace.”

“How do ya’ mean?”

Bonnie meets the eyes of a person she’s simply confused, and she sighs at it. “I don’t know myself. Maybe I’m just trying to figure out a way to cope through all this.”

Then Sadie stands, sheathing her knife that could cut through oxygen. “You ain’t supposed to cope, you supposed to survive.”

She walks away at that. A fair quote, and an expected one when Bonnie asked the woman who inspired her to change, to get out of her moping. Only somehow, it led her to mope even more. Life is strange, but Bonnie stands up too and decides to get back to it, sighing to herself: “Guess I should try that then.”

However, Sadie’s standing rather stiffly on the path, as if something stopped her, stops Bonnie too. Stepping down from the porch, she finds she is looking at something and she follows her gaze.

She suddenly wishes she hadn’t at what she sees next. “What the _hell_ is that?!”

Sadie doesn’t answer, maybe because even _she_ doesn’t know. All they know is it’s a decapitated man on horseback, bloodied and mangled and broken.

Bonnie tries making out the head, and it looks like… _Is that?..._

_“It’s Kieran!”_

_My Lord above._

Then a bullet grazes the dirt by Bonnie’s feet. One bullet, followed by two, then four, then many. She found herself going from gawking to running with all her power to some cover. So did Sadie, Charles, and whoever else decided to be outside the house in this moment.

Bonnie is left sporadic periods to peek from cover to make out the attackers before a bullet tries to mark her, but she sees hooded men coming from the tree line and from the gates and from every other unsuspecting place. She thinks she hears Dutch calling them O’Driscolls.

Nevertheless, she forces herself a clearer mind as she unholsters her gun, checks for bullets, then shoots one right through a man’s throat. She continues to shoot, disarming some, holding some back, and killing others. Then—

_“Pa! Pa!”_

_Jack._

The boy is running out of cover to his father who has finally come out of the house. John is farther, Bonnie is closer, and a bullet scraping that boy’s head would be a sight to finish her. With that, she bolts and snatches him into his arms.

A dangerous decision that almost leads to them both getting killed with the number of bullets it rains, but he is safely handed to his mother. After that, Bonnie returns to her cover and gets back to shooting when John comes huddling alongside her in her cover, thanking her. It begs the immediate question; why is he by her and not his family?

But she couldn’t get the moment to ask it, not when John starts asking all the questions as she defends the house. _“What you doing? Go on inside! Arthur’s letting everyone in now!”_

And so he was when a quick look behind her tells her that. Still, _“Get on! I got this! You know I do!”_ And she marks another man through the head. That shuts John up, and he does his own bid of killing.

However, the numbers began to multiply at the sudden influx of wagons, and with that, _everyone_ had to get inside; there were too many. Dutch awaits them once they’re all inside, urging them to barricade the door with anything they could find— a chair, a cupboard— before he begins giving instruction.

“John, you take the windows over there. Charles, you take the side door over there. Arthur, you take the windows in the back—” the men disperse, and Dutch turns after Bonnie. “Miss MacFarlane, you best take cover.”

“I’ll be fine,” she now urges. “Let me help.”

“Alright then—” then he points toward the sitting area. “Join John back there, _quick!”_

Bonnie does so. Two windows to be had, and with John taking one, she takes the other. Quick as she could, she breaks the window open with her gun’s grip, just in time to shoot the O’Driscolls that come running outside the broken frame. With John by her side, it’s as if they are in Scarlett Meadows again killing Lemoyne Raiders.

Then suddenly, a rallying and pained cry comes from outside. Sounds like Sadie and it makes Bonnie’s stomach fall a bit. Arthur jumps at the chance to check for her, telling Bonnie and John to cover him. They do and she waits with bated breath for the chance that they were okay. But they were: Arthur and Sadie came running out from the marsh outside the estate, in fact, him clean and her covered in blood from head to toe. She was indulging herself in a massacre, not dying; a scary fact, but Bonnie is thankful, nonetheless. So is John when he snickers at the sight. 

The numbers are beginning to wane, though, which now grants all of them a chance to finally leave the house and shoot with more room and versatility. That brings the battle on Shady Belle to a close, with either the dead inking the grass with red or the yellow-bellies cutting and running. Even _they_ didn’t last long when some of the men killed them for sport.

Ultimately, the estate is now covered from forefront to rear with blood, brains, and flesh. Including the brains, blood, and flesh of poor Kieran.

Hosea comes walking out of the house with the women and children. “We okay?” he asks Dutch.

“I think so,” Dutch answers him, then looks down at his boot. “Except for Kieran here.”

The kid’s head is no bigger than Dutch’s boot, unpleasant looking when it’s so far apart from his shriveled, colorless body. And being closer to it now, Bonnie finds the kid’s eyes have been taken from him too.

She looks away, clenching her stomach; this is the same kid she saw walking around alive and well only _days_ ago.

When Dutch asked the reverend to collect his body and bury him, that’s when the gang began to pick up pace again. Charles helped with the boy’s body, Hosea taking his head, and the rest of them are left to discard the rest of the bodies someplace to put the estate back in shipshape and Bristol fashion. Bonnie is about to do so until she hears John’s scoff talking to Arthur.

He kicks a lifeless hand. “Goddamn Kieran. We should never have taken that O’Driscoll in.”

Bonnie faces him. _“Don’t_ talk ill of that boy. You’ve seen what them bastard’s done to him.”

Then, with Bill’s help, she picks up a body and trudges it across the land. John’s eyes follow her, and it only sought to irritate her with what’s happening now, her touching the ankles of a lifeless body. A place she never thought she’d be in no more than a few months ago. And Kieran and Sean… they probably didn’t think they’d be dead so young on that note.

She’s seen life being taken from folks so willingly for so long, _too long,_ and instead of growing numb to it, it’s breaking her psyche at the seams.

Her sigh is heavy. It’s all becoming too much.

* * *

The weeks pass. Jobs are getting done and money is coming in, slowly but surely. Bonnie helps with chores as usual, not at all doing what she is expected as a new gun now, getting into scores and robbing stagecoaches. It’s because she’s had some time to think about her life, where she is and where she wants to go, and now it’s left her changed. So changed that eventually, on a hot and murky evening, she goes up to Dutch’s room about to tell him what’s what.

As quietly as she can, she takes a deep breath, harrows down any lump her throat carried, then knocks on his door.

Silence answers for a moment until— “Is that Arthur?”

She clears her throat. “It’s Bonnie.”

“Oh! Miss MacFarlane, come in, come in.”

This she does. She walks in figuring Dutch was alone, but Hosea is there too. Makes what she wants to say even harder if she is honest.

Hosea is planted at the desk in the room while Dutch walks toward Bonnie with open arms. “I’m glad you came in, miss!” he begins. “Me and Mr. Matthews were just discussing a possible bank robbery in Saint Denis, and according to Hosea here, it could be quite the haul for us.”

“I’ve sent Tilly and Abigail to do some scouting around the place as well,” Hosea adds. “They all say it’ll be a pretty easy job getting in, however dramatic it’ll be. I reckon the law aren’t as smart and tough as they let on too.”

“Point is, we need us an extra gun, plus a pretty face, and we think you’d be a good fit for that! With that being said, why don’t you take some of the boys into town, get them a fresh set of clothes—”

“Well, ya’ see, that’s just it,” Bonnie stops them, all the while struggling to begin. “I’m… y’all know I’m grateful, for everything you folk have done for me. Every day I’m grateful. I’d be dead if it weren’t for y’all.”

She can see them itching to agree when confusion gets to their expression at the suddenness of her statement. Hosea is the one to voice it though: “What’s brought that on, miss?”

“Well…” her hands are behind back to hide their shuffling. “Only that I’ve been thinking about things. You’ve protected me, given me a place to call home, given me time to recover from what I’ve gone through— and I’ve done well, besides. I’m alright now, and so… with that, I think it’s time I, well, make my own way.”

There’s a pause that comes, and their faces drop her heart. “Make your own way?” Dutch echoes. “You mean leave?”

She keeps her head held high. “…Yes.”

“Can I ask why?” Hosea questions, brows knit tight and radiating genuine concern. “Has someone ‘round here wronged you? Do you feel unsafe?”

It is all those things, but Bonnie felt it better to lie. “Not at all, gentlemen. Only I’ve… I suppose I’ve come to realize I thrive better on my own. I’ll— I’ll stay for that bank robbery, of course, I owe ya’ that. But I’ve felt stuck for a while now, and I take it it’s a sign.”

Both Hosea and Dutch try to scan her for a lie, but she sure they don’t spot anything but a broken heart. With that, after a patch of silence, Hosea took to clearing his throat. “Well then, if you’re sure, we’ll be happy to have you there. Especially if it’s your last dealing with us.”

He smiles at her, a smile that Bonnie tries her best returning, but Dutch is still scanning her under furrowed brows. “You’re really serious about this, Miss MacFarlane?”

She nods at him, but he continues: “Because as I say, a lone wolf never last long out on the plains. We all stick together, and stay tight now, I know things have been a little rocky, but we’ll be okay. You know me, miss, you know I’ll see us all right.”

“I know, and I don’t doubt that, truly,” she says with a slight tremble. “But I think this is for the best, for me, at least.”

Finally, Dutch eases off, in the form of a slow, leaden nod. “Well, no one’s forcing you to stay, of course,” he says. “As Hosea says, we’ll be happy to have you there. And after that, you may take my good wishes with you.”

“Mine too,” Hosea chimes in, then gives her a gentle smile, like the one he gave her way back when at Horseshoe in one of her darkest moments. “You’re a brave woman, miss. The bravest I ever saw. You’ll do just fine out there.”

Bonnie felt more cowardly than brave, more miserable than relieved. However, she hides all that under a pained smile. “Thank you for understanding, gentlemen.” Then, she makes her leave. She can hear the two men whisper about her even from the base of the stairs, but she tries not to let it eat away at her heart as she returned to the red and orange evening.

This life, this way… it has left her hopeless, without prospects and without drive. She can only think of what her father would say if he were alive and knew where she was. She’s sure he must be turning in his grave now. That alone is enough to make her see that this decision is only right. A life of thievery and murder and uncertainty is not a life at all. And a life that ruins the life and relationship of another, however much she is torn between right and wrong on that score, isn’t a life either.

With that, this has to be.

Over the next few weeks, she packs trivial things and important things. Things to entertain and things to live off until there is nothing left to pack. Keeping her things hidden kept her plans away from the public eye, and so she preferred it that way. Meanwhile, the days go on, and on an afternoon filled with daily chores, she feels a walk is needed after it all.

The hot air and the unforgiving sun isn’t exactly a soother, but the calm is all in the solitude. That is until she hears footsteps jogging from behind her. She looks.

John, come with a smile that Bonnie didn’t dare return. _What the hell does he want?_

“How you keeping?”

She speeds up her walking. “Fine.”

But the man could still keep up. “This place ain’t so bad, is it? Four walls and a roof? We’re moving up in the world.”

Bonnie’s sigh comes out clipped. “I suppose so.”

There’s a pause then, “I hope you’ll miss it when you’re gone.”

That stops her dead in her tracks— _who the hell told him?—_ but even with her visible surprise, John merely stops before her and explains: “I heard Hosea and Arthur talking about it. Either way, I’m sure you’ll be alright out there. A feller wouldn’t want to get on your bad side, or they’ll be playing harp before sunset.”

Funny coming from him when Hosea practically said the same, just more poetically. She doesn’t take the compliment, but her heartbeat slows without an opposing threat and her walking with it. Meanwhile, he trails and asks, “When are you leaving?”

Bonnie clears her throat. “’Til the bank robbery in Saint Denis. I’m sure Dutch has told you ‘bout that.” She answers him clearly, like she hasn’t done in a long while.

“He has,” John confirms before a long, long pause. “So, you’re doing this then? Dutch is losing a gun?”

She hears his sadness in his speech, and it’s difficult not letting it get to her. “It’s the way it goes sometimes.”

Another pause follows, then— “What about us?”

Her heart sinks yet again. “…What _about_ us?”

“Well. We’ve been good friends, ain’t we? Been through it together, been the happiest together… You and me, we make a fine team. So, when you talk of leaving, I can’t help fearing a little. Fearing I’d lose something, and that you’d forget us. Forget _me._ ”

She hates that his words touch her, in more ways than one. Hates that after hearing them, she faces him with swelling eyes because she can’t hold it in any longer.

“Of course I wouldn’t, John— I’ve been blessed here. I’ve been given food and bed when no one even knew my name. I’ve been given opportunity to heal when I should’ve been trampled over and thrown. I’ve… I’ve known _you,_ John. I’ve known you and I… This hurts, leaving you.”

Now her words touch him, and she knows this in the way his face shifts, as if his heart has been ripped from his chest.

“Bonnie… If that’s the case, then…” he draws near. “You’ve gotta stay—”

But she leaps back. “I _can’t.”_

Now his brows furrow, pained and hurt. _“Why?”_

“Don’t act stupid,” her voice breaks without her meaning to. “You know why.”

She turns away, trying her hardest to recollect her composure that is slipping away from her fingers. Then she hears his heavy sigh. “We ain’t married, Abigail and I—”

She looks back at him with fire. “You ought to be, you’ve given her _child.”_

“Bonnie, don’t. Please, just stay. I’m _asking—”_

_“You’re a child!”_ his words make her come undone. “You think I’m some damn toy you can sit down and play with whenever you goddamn please, don’t you?”

“No, of course I don’t—”

“You think ‘cause I can murder a man in cold blood and rob without a second thought that I ain’t got no soul or no heart—”

“It ain’t like that, Bonnie! Listen to me—”

His hand comes grappling on her paper-thin wrist, pulling her into passionate eyes. On reflex, her fist comes up to hit hard against his chest. She trembles out, immediately, _“The hell are you doing—”_

“Listen to me, _please!_ I was… I was gonna tell you, I was gonna tell you the night we got drunk and I did all them forward things, but I—”

“You’re a goddamn lie! You lie and you tried to make me your whore, you sick son of a bitch—” she yanks at his strength. _“Let me go—”_

He's insisting, voice trembling— _“Bonnie—”_

“I said **_let me go!”_**

Then his lips seize her, urgent and vigorous. The sheer strength of him almost knocks her back but his hands trap her, keep her so drilled to his body that she’s left to take the shape of a bow. Her heart now completely at a stop, her tears have finally begun to flow.

Her mind is blank, unable to figure out what to make of this. Of his lips, rough yet soft and sweet. Of her hands, once in the air and slowly gliding down to hang on his shoulders. Morality, pride, and honor have left her, and what is left is desire. Enough desire to let her eyes close and let John take her.

But this isn’t right. By God, this isn’t right.

Her hands plant on his chest for a hard push, carrying all the strength she can muster. Her heart picks up pace, this time for a completely different reason. Her hand raises, to slap—

“Marston.”

A voice turns their heads. Arthur’s voice.

“Dutch wants to see you. ‘Bout this bank robbery.”

With his deadly yet disappointed gaze on John, Bonnie knows the man has seen every bit of what just transpired.

And because of that, she gives John a hard slap across his unsuspecting cheek, hard enough to send ripples through the air with a loud _crack._ Then, she scurries away.

John Marston, one of the best and bravest of gunslingers and the most awful of men. She finally begins to sob.

_Goddamn that man._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUESS WHAT? I GOT A FEVER! AND THE ONLY PERSCRIPTION.... IS MORE FEEDBACK!
> 
> (if you get that reference, then you're the goat lmao)


	6. The Great American Art: Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heey heEY HE Y... you got you a nEW CHAPTER TO DA Y 
> 
> my bad pfff. enjoy. sorry for the wait lhdflgkdhfg 💕💖💕💖💕💖💕💖

John’s hands could take up the whole of Bonnie’s back if he wanted them too, she’s so small. Her lips are warm and welcoming just as he imagined, just like they were in his many dreams. To have his dreams and his desires be fulfilled in that one kiss, the world paused as if it were just the two of them on this earth… It was right, after so long of wrong.

So, when she pushes him away, and gives him a slap so hard it draws blood, it’s no surprise his eyes grow wide enough to pop out of their sockets. He isn’t sure what to make of it, how to feel…

However, with Arthur’s scoff and shake of his head, John is sure of one thing: who to blame.

He follows him a long way into the house, past the foyer and up to the second floor, and he doesn’t let him turn the knob to Dutch’s door before he pushes at his shoulder. “The hell’s your problem, Morgan?”

He just scoffs. “Oh, _I_ got a problem,” he starts. “I got a problem, but you’re playing some other poor woman like a fiddle, as if you ain’t got enough pleasure in doing that to someone else. It’s no wonder she slapped the shit outta you.”

His mentioning it had John wiping away the crimson trickling down his upper lip. He rolls his eyes. “I should’ve known you’d be sniffing around.”

That earns him an ironic chuckle. “I ain’t got to sniff around,” Arthur says. “Not when you make your feelings so perfectly clear, so that the whole world can know.”

John frowns. “And why should I hide them, huh?—”

“Don’t you go actin’ stupid neither!” Arthur points a finger in his face. “You know damn well what you done, and what you been doin’.”

“Yeah, I know exactly what I been doin’, friend, which is minding my own business,” John takes his chance to be curt. “What me and Bonnie got going has nothing to do with you last I checked, so do yourself a favor and stay out of it!”

For a moment, that shuts Arthur up, then his glare grows heavy. “Should _Abigail_ stay out of it too?”

John’s blood curls at her name, at how she’s always used as an excuse to set him farther away from Bonnie, or a ploy to make him look ridiculous. He retaliates fast: “You know what— why don’t _you_ have her? Since you always talking of her.”

“She’s your damn wife,” Arthur continues to grit. “And you just throw her aside like it ain’t nothing!”

“Just ‘cause I slept with a girl don’t mean I owe ‘er my goddamn life! How many times am I gonna say this?”

“That girl you slept with gave you a child— what, you gonna abandon him too?”

Now John points a finger and grits: “I ain’t abandoned that boy— now you keep him out of this. I went with you and Dutch to save him, ain’t I?”

“If it weren’t for Abigail chewing your ear off, you wouldn’t’ve done shit! I seen you when them O’Driscolls came; you went straight for Miss MacFarlane and ain’t looked _twice—”_

_“You wanna know why?”_

_“Yeah, I wanna know why!”_

_“Because **I love her!**_ I love Bonnie MacFarlane, and you best believe I will drop everything to be with her, _especially_ that son of a bitch you fools keep calling my wife!”

Finally, Arthur’s gone quiet, and John is about to have at him again until he realizes it’s not his ultimatum that’s left him speechless, but something behind them. He follows his gaze.

And there’s Abigail. She was frowning and solemn for all the reasons John knows: she heard it all.

“Thank you, John. For explaining so fully.”

Without snarl and without a curse to his name, she walks by them and down the stairs. Arthur’s eyes trail her until she’s gone, then he looks at John next with the nastiest glare he’s ever given him.

“You are a _rotten_ man, John Marston.”

Arthur leaves him too, to call after Abigail and leave John with anger that hurts his head and guilt that adds a thousand pounds of weight to his heart. He goes to his room and comes out for nothing. Not even Dutch.

Anger exhausts him and he eventually goes to sleep. When he wakes up next, it’s at a later hour and he swears he hears commotion outside— more commotion than usual. Something tells him to go investigate and he does, finding that Abigail and Jack have vanished. Better yet, they left him. Tilly saw the woman packing her bags late last night. She took his boy with her and never said a word.

He wouldn’t say he’s surprised; that Abigail always told him he wasn't needed, that he was useless and if it weren’t for Jack, she’d have packed her bags long ago. It’s the fact that Jack’s gone too, right when he was beginning to do right by the boy. Seems he left it too late.

With their leaving, whatever he has with Bonnie went on the decline. He no longer exists to her and he doesn’t think he blames her; no woman in her right mind wants a man who can’t make up his mind on being a father and being a gunslinger. She doesn’t want anything to do with an idiot, essentially.

John really thought he changed. After that business with Bronte, he was scared into sense and he wanted to. But nothing was ever that simple. Nothing about taking Jack and starting anew with Bonnie by his side was simple. Either that, or an idiot like him just didn’t deserve those perfect dreams.

Dutch, though. Classic Dutch: he told him to stop worrying about women and start worrying about this upcoming bank heist. And so, by the next Friday in its early morning, that’s what he does with the rest of the posse. He changes in his room now, with a new set of dapper clothes so they’re all following Dutch’s “look smart, travel light” rule.

His pants are on, his wingtip shoes and his new gun belt. He’s about to put on his dress shirt when a knock comes at his door.

“I’m getting dressed.”

The person comes in anyway. He turns.

It’s Bonnie.

His heart starts racing again, too quick for him to register. He’s not sure what to say with the way things are now, that is until he looks at her; her hat is vibrant with its decoration, and her dress glows a pretty pink in the sunlight. She’s done something jolly with her hair too and gave her cheeks and lips more red. Being a fancy lady of Saint Denis suits her, and somehow, he finds a way to say this. “You look very fine.”

She must have thought the same when she scans his bare chest like that. But she admits to nothing though, only bows her head toward her polished heels. “Don’t flirt with me, John. Not now.”

_Flirt._ He thought he was being kind, but with everything laid out on the table now, what else could it have been?

They steal glances and maintain a heart-aching silence long enough to drive John mad by the end, so he sees no choice in addressing the elephant in the room.

“Bonnie, listen, I’m… I was real wrong. I should’ve known better than to try and make you my floozy. I should’ve held you with greater respect, should’ve… kept this at a friendship, most of all. You, miss, you deserve good things. Better things. Me? I’m… I suppose I’m just a fool, I…”

He ends up trailing off, for he knows he isn’t making sense. “I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry.”

Talking isn’t so good for him now when he grows more miserable with each word. He’s not sure Bonnie is taking it in anyway, when her eyes remain that icy cold— colder than he remembers. He just sighs at it.

“If you ain’t willing to forgive me, I don’t blame you, you know.”

“I don’t forgive you.”

She speaks finally, though her words only hurt.

John harrows down emotion itching to burst. “Does that mean you’re still leaving then?”

When he sees Bonnie swallowing, he knows she’s holding back just as much. “Yes. Like I said, I’m helping you folk with this robbery, taking my share, and I’m moving on.”

“So, I’ve… I’ve ruined everything?”

Her eyes hit that softness, the same one that made him hope all those times. They’re only hurting each other talking, when her words break his heart and so does his words to her.

“You’ve shown me I been living in a dream,” she says. “And that it’s time I head on back to the real world.”

He sees her swallowing again, hands trembling and eyes fluctuating between soft and cold. Trying to hide a broken heart. It’s the only thing that gets John to raise a weak finger. “Can I ask ya’ something though?”

When her eyes come back from the floor, that’s when he asks it. “Was you in love with me? Really?”

His question makes her front tear at the seams. “You know I was…”

“Because—” he throws his dress shirt aside, moving closer. “Because I was in love with you, you know. I really was.”

He wishes he didn’t say all of that, if only to be spared her eyes, deep with immeasurable grief, and her lip just to quivering. He wishes he couldn’t see that because he knows it’s all _his_ doing.

Her words trembles on their way out: “John, you know I can’t be sure of that…”

He couldn’t help himself; he takes her hands and holds them close. “I would’ve had you, Bonnie. I would have. But I was caught between a rock and a hard place, I… I had to raise the boy, and I had to stick around for his sake—”

“But you didn’t tell me. It’d have been one thing if you told me, but you didn’t tell me.”

Her voice loses more and more strength the longer they speak. John’s head falls, so hard to listen to. “I know. I know. And I’m so, so sorry.”

“Don’t trouble yourself, please,” her head shakes. “Everything’s changed anyway, so there ain’t no point in it.”

That makes John look up. “Ain’t nothing changed. I’m still in love with you, Bonnie, and I still want to be with you.”

He hoped for a turn then, hoped that she would give in, and at her errant tear finally falling, he thought she would until her hand leaves his hold, planting gently on his chest.

“You can’t do that, John. Not after what you’ve done. Not after what we’ve done.”

To that poor boy Jack. To Abigail. To everyone. He loses her when she backs away from him.

“I’ve gotta respect myself. And so should you.”

Then after she straightens up, wiping tears and clearing her throat, she turns and leaves. The final nail in the coffin.

John picks his dress shirt back up and tries his damnedest not to punch the weak walls.

Bonnie met the rest of the gang outside, where they were either siding their mounts or making last minute adjustments to the outfits they weren’t used to wearing. A lot of changes were made since this robbery was first prospected; Bonnie remembered she was supposed to be an active gun in this, but Dutch figured her looks would do. She also told Dutch she didn’t mind riding Lilibet into town, but “women of society don’t ride”. She didn’t feel like objecting to either of his points.

John finishes up soon, but not Arthur, so they still must wait. Meanwhile, Bonnie gets compliments from the men, including Micah— somehow. She supposes it isn’t so much kindness as it is their trying to part with her on good terms, but perhaps there is kindness in that alone. And she won’t deny missing this... The teamwork, the warmth, the comfort of knowing someone always had your back. You weren’t ever alone here; John was right on that score. However, what will be will be, and with Arthur ready to go, that means they are off.

Bonnie and Hosea ride point while Dutch and the rest of the men follow behind. Dutch gets in his usual high before a robbery, though this time it’s amped up with everyone in it with him. Everyone except John, or her talk with him before this got him in a sour mood. Either way, Dutch drones on and Bonnie scarcely listens until he begins saying the important things; how this is going down.

“We go in calm and fast,” he starts. “Hosea and Miss MacFarlane will draw out the police. John and Lenny, you secure the front doors. Javier takes the side exit. Micah, Bill, and Charles, control the crowd. Me and Arthur will deal with the bank manager and the vault. Is everyone clear on what they’re doing?”

Everyone hollered their yeses, then Hosea speaks up. “Gentlemen, let us go ahead!”

“How long do you need?” Dutch replies.

“Not long,” Hosea answers. “Fifteen minutes or less. You’ll know by the noise. Any problems, we’ll see you back at camp. Good luck, fellas!”

With that, good wishes are waved, and they part ways. The smells around them shift from murky swamp to factory smoke with each mile as the minutes pass. They are mostly spent in silence, until Hosea cleared his throat.

“So!” he begins. “We’re robbing ourselves a bank and within six weeks, we’ll be living life anew in a tropical idyll, spending the rest of our days as banana farmers.”

Bonnie chuckles half-heartedly. “Sounds about right.”

“What about you, miss?” Hosea turns to her. “What will you do with all that money?”

She had a lot of time to think about it, and with all that time, she can finally answer that question confidently. “I’ll go up in the northern country, I suppose. Start a new life there. I had my heart set on that bit of land my father wanted up in Hennigan’s Stead, but those may be big dreams now. And anyway, who knows what I’ll find up north?”

Hosea hums, then takes on an unexpected seriousness. “I gather I know the true reason behind your leaving, miss, if you don’t mind me saying.”

She curls her brow at him. “Oh?”

“Do correct me if I’m wrong,” he begins. “But it’s John that has you packing your bags, right? I know he’s played you. Played poor Abigail too. He is an idiot, as we all know.”

She had a feeling Hosea knew about them two. He knows a lot of things and she isn’t sure if it’s warming or scary that he does. Either way, she just sighs. “Yes, he is most definitely an idiot. An idiot I fell for, so... I guess _I’m_ the idiot, ain’t I?”

Hosea waves her off. “No, not at all,” he says. “You took him for what he gave you, while he hid a lot more. He’s acting as if he ain’t been raised right. Still I suppose that’s the way of youth, not knowing any better.”

They _were_ acting like some youths, like some inexperienced, complicated teenagers. Her disappointment in herself couldn’t have been no greater than Hosea’s. “I know there ain’t much I can say to justify all that. I just need to make sure I finish it. And it _is_ finished.”

With Hosea’s silence, she thinks there’s an end to the conversation until— “But it’s not finished, is it? When you fall as hard as you pair have for each other, is it ever really finished?”

Yet another statement that has left Bonnie quiet, picking at the gloves that hug her hands. “…Is that wisdom from your time with your wife, Bessie?”

At the mention of her name, he perked up a little. “Oh yes... Never was a dull moment with that woman,” he chuckled. “But what kept us apart was me being an outlaw and her being a lady of society. ‘Course that all worked itself out in the end but even so. Your situation is a little different.”

Bonnie sighs again. “It ain’t different, it’s just stupid. And needs ending.”

Hosea shrugs. “Maybe it does,” he says. “But I fear that’ll do no good either.”

She looks at him. “It won’t?”

Now Hosea mimics her sigh, however it’s heavier. “I don’t want to condone any of this, if I’m being honest,” he begins. “John hadn’t done right by Abigail and Jack. He should’ve made changes, and left you alone—”

“Of course—”

“But that didn’t happen because the reality is you two take to each other. There’s nothing I nor you and John can do about it at this rate, so the question is... What now? Because even if you do go your separate ways, and you prosper, no other jilt will satisfy your needs knowing the other is still out there somewhere.”

That’s a statement that leaves her in the middle of flattery and fright. Still, she manages to reply. “So... you think I should take him anyway?”

“Don’t deny it, that’s all,” he says. “Do what’s in your heart, because the heart doesn’t do well being silenced.”

Talking of the heart... It is jarring for her, especially coming from the man who was closest to the woman her and John humiliated. He should be reeling. Hell, they shouldn’t be sharing a wagon right now, and yet... “Are you sure you ain’t been drinking before this, Hosea?”

That earns her a cackle. “No, my dear, I speak from a very sober heart,” Hosea responds. “I know I sound ridiculous, trust me, but the ridiculous thing and the best thing are so often the very same. Might as well just... see where it leads you.”

Bonnie hates false hope. Hates praying for things that she knows won’t come, and with their luck in banditry and her own luck in love, things seem so impossible. John... He takes away her ability to rationalize, her ability to control her life. With him, everything is known and unknown, an orderly mess that she knew not what to make of.

Even so, she sighs a final time. “Maybe. We’ll see.”

They cross the bridge soon, into Saint Denis, which means their heads have to get back into the game. Bonnie couldn’t shake the adrenaline that quickened her heart, but she eases her mind with that “last one” thought. That after this, she can finally get back to normalcy.

They do their best blending into the crowds, nodding their greetings to the pedestrians and fellow wagon drivers alike, until they reached a dark alleyway behind a complex. A complex just a few jogs away from Lemoyne National Bank.

“Alright,” Hosea starts his way down the wagon in a whisper. “Reach in the back and get us some dynamite. One or two sticks should do it.”

Bonnie does what she’s asked, hopping down from the wagon seat. Once she’s got the dynamite, she holds them gently and tightly to her figure; if she knows one thing about dynamite, it’s that it isn’t wise to drop.

She meets Hosea at their planting point. He grabs some sticks, she keeps a few, and the planting begins. They spend a few minutes planting the dynamite with care, and once they’re finished, Hosea takes a step back to grade their handiwork. Then, “seems good enough.”

“Okay,” Bonnie nods. “I’ll light a fuse. One fuse should blow them all, if my instincts are correct.”

“And they most certainly are,” goes Hosea when he passes her a match. She takes it with a smirk, striking it against the bottom of her shoe. She brings the match’s flame to the first fuse and with its detonation comes their run to make space.

They stop behind their parked wagon, luckily a good way away from the action. Meanwhile, Hosea whispers to Bonnie their next moves: “Let’s split up after it blows, lead the law away from the robbery. Should be easy since they don’t know we’re here; there won’t be too many of them, and we’ll be long gone before they send reinforcements. Merge in with the crowd, jump on a horse... And I’ll meet you back at the bridge.”

“You got it,” says Bonnie. “I sure hope that dynamite’ll wor—”

Then a boom comes that shakes them to their backs. It’s a shock that takes a moment to recover from, but when the whistles ring out and the horse hooves come drumming their way, Bonnie wastes no time getting on her feet.

Fancy lady-of-leisure clothes are not running clothes at all, but Bonnie tries her best. The next path she runs down has papers strewn about and horse shit not yet cleaned, but no people to blend in to. She hears them though and she’s following the sound until—

_“You!_ Stop right there!”

_Shit, that quick?_

She bolts for a turn into the alleys. She thought she’d find the working class there at least, but there’s nothing. It’s an empty marketplace that leaves her out in the open and she’s looking for an exit somewhere— anywhere—

“Hey — _stop!”_

It’s just her and this other policeman now until she turns around and sees he’s got friends.

“Don’t move, miss. No harm will befall ya’.”

She doubts that, but her hands ease their way above her head, nonetheless. She thinks she’ll reel them in.

She forces her voice into a wobble. “I’m sorry... I’m sorry, a’right?”

“It’s okay, miss, just stay calm...”

They inch toward her now, their hands thankfully off their guns. Gives Bonnie all the confidence she needs to start juking one man, then the next, then the next, until they’re on the floor and she’s running back to the roads. She isn’t sure how she managed it, but she doesn’t dare complain.

The grass isn’t always greener though, and she learns this when she greets more Pinkertons back on the main road. It’s a miracle they don’t see her, while she spots the gardens on the other end of the street, beginning her prowl there.

“Hey— she’s on the move! _Get her!”_

_Goddammit._

She hurries now, ramming her body into the gates to open them. It sent sharp pains through the whole front of her and her ankle sprains too, but she ignores it just until she leaps for the andromeda bushes.

While the branches poke holes into her, it is quiet, but it isn’t long before the men catch up with her. The three boots are heavy. The four. The five? She peeks from the thicket.

The many boots, rather. Too many.

“Has anyone spotted her yet?” goes one of them, an agent. “We need her caught— she’s one of them. She could tell us where Dutch van der Linde is!”

“No, sir! I’ve searched the area and there’s no sign of her.”

“Check the bushes! She might be cowering there.”

_Aw, shit._

Only one man does what he’s told, searching through the highbush first, but he will get to the andromeda plants and Bonnie has a hard rock waiting on him when he does—

“We got Hosea Matthews, sir!”

A man comes through the gates, and it has all heads turning. Especially Bonnie’s.

“Hosea Matthews? Oh, that’s even better. Come on then, men!”

One by one, they leave, and Bonnie can leave the bushes, though not at all with a clear head. At the clear coast, she picks up her run, not sure what to do, but she knows she’s headed for Lemoyne National Bank.

John and young Lenny are at the entrance, just as Dutch told them to be. She sees them long before they see her, with understandably furrowed brows.

“Miss MacFarlane?” goes Lenny.

John questions next: “What you doin’ here? We s’posed to meet you back at camp—”

“They got Hosea.”

Furrowed brows go to expressions that wonder if she’s lost some screws. “What do you mean ‘they got Hosea’?” Lenny asks.

“Arrested or shot?” asks John next.

“I don’t know— I was distracting them, I was hiding, then come to find out they caught up with Hosea—”

_“How,_ woman? Arrested? Shot?”

“I said I don’t know! I ain’t seen nothing— we split up.”

“Split up?” now he’s angry with her. “I thought we was s’posed to be sticking together through all this!”

And that in turn angers her. “Well it weren’t my damn idea—”

“Hang on, y’all! I see some law on the way.”

Lenny whispers that, and Bonnie would’ve turned to look if she weren’t immediately pushed inside the bank. But what her eyes couldn’t see, the window surely show her; the law are piling up out there, and _fast._

Lenny comes jogging in with John, who announces, “We got trouble out here!”

Everyone dropped their roles at that. The money looked safe and secure in the saddlebags by then, so finding cover and readying weaponry required no extra work. Bonnie isn’t meant to be there, so she has no role, however she made one in taking John’s other gun from its holster. 

He frowns at her— “What you doin’?”

But she shuts him down before he starts— _“Hush.”—_ soon turning to Lenny. “Go cover that window over yonder, honey. I got it from here.”

He goes to the window she points at with an “okay”, and Bonnie covers the latter side of the entrance. Meanwhile, John ogles the lawmen coming outside with frustration. “Where the hell’d they come from? Did you get followed or something, woman?”

Bonnie shoots him a glare. “‘Course I didn’t! What’s wrong with you?”

If anything is sudden, it’s his coldness and surliness. And at his look, she thought she would get an answer to it, but he just shakes himself. “Nothing.”

Bonnie felt like she knew what it was though, and it makes her heart fall a little until—

“Dutch! Get out here! Get out here now!”

It’s Milton hollering outside, can’t have been good news. But the news only grows more horrid once Bonnie finds he’s got Hosea by the collar and at the business end of his revolver.

Her heart sinks to her knees just looking at the sight, at the way Milton seems to be choking the poor old man with that grip, at how frail and helpless Hosea looks… Dutch and everyone else winces at the sight. “Someone must’ve squealed!”

John sighs heavily next. “Never should’ve gone after Bronte, Dutch.”

Angelo Bronte, the man Bonnie heard ran this town, and controlled the law here. The boys went and killed that man too, not even realizing the hell it would bring on them later. Things are not looking good...

“Mr. Milton, let my friend go!” Dutch panics out. “Or folks... They are gonna get shot unnecessarily!”

Milton cackles out there. “Your friend? Why would I do that?”

That only gets Dutch to plead. “Come on, Milton!”

“It’s over! No more bargains and no more deals.”

“Milton, this is _America!_ You can always cut a deal.”

“I’ve given you enough chances!”

Then he kicks Hosea aside, with enough force to hurt the poor old man. But he’s free, out of Milton’s clutches and for a moment it’s like the bastard has something like a heart in him...

Then he puts a bullet in his feeble chest.

“There’s your deal, Dutch.”

Hosea hits the ground lifeless with an unmistakable thud, and suddenly Bonnie feels like she’s in the Grizzlies again, watching her brother and father die before her eyes. Another death she could do nothing about.

“Hosea! _Goddammit! **Kill** those sons of bitches!”_

Glass is broken and shots ring out with Dutch’s broken yell. It’s all it took to replace Bonnie’s heavy heart with a familiar fearlessness and anger.

Lawmen find their way by the entrance and every other place around them to lay shots. Bonnie’s thoughts are for naught making quick work of them; Hosea, one of the few men who touched her heart, died the worst death, and because of this, watching a man’s blood spill by her own bullet has never felt so much like a revelation.

Though it also feels like she is reloading constantly. It means there are more men than they could handle out there, with one man down and plenty more taking his place. It means they are getting overwhelmed.

_“Any way we’re getting out of this?”_ Bonnie tries to talk over the many bullets that whiz around them. _“There’s no damn shortage of them!”_

_“Well, there ain’t no way we’re getting out this door— or the side exit,”_ John shouts back, reloading. _“I think Dutch is working on something! Just keep shooting!”_

_“I’m trying!”_

And she does, meanwhile checking if John was talking true between her reload breaks. Dutch is working on something with Arthur, ducked behind the register. Arthur gets sent away eventually though, dodging bullets on his way to one of the bank’s walls, dynamite in hand. He gets that stick planted and it’s the last thing Bonnie sees shooting men before she hears, _“Stand clear! I’m blowing this wall!”_

Then the world shakes, rattling the bank’s floors and almost tripping Bonnie up. With the bullets still coming, however, and the Pinkertons not going away anytime soon, she couldn’t afford to stay shaken up.

Dutch took Arthur’s place at the window nearest the side exit. Slowing their numbers became easier with his help, though not by much.

Then Arthur shouts from a building above _. “Everyone, move! I’ll hold them off!”_

From the best shot in this bunch, that does sound promising. Dutch shouts from behind her as she shoot, _“You heard ‘im! Let’s move!”_

Bonnie empties her round and reloads again. Everyone is moving out by then, except her and a few others— Bill, Charles, and John. Dutch sees this and his confusion is evident on his face. _“You fellas moving? Come on!”_

Bonnie’s about to move, with Bill and Charles, but John— _“Go on! Me and Bonnie’ll clear you some space!”_

She understands why he makes that decision; between them, they make a decent team, and Arthur helping them from above makes things better. Even so, the fact remained: killing those Pinkertons is no easy task. In fact, as John leaves Bonnie’s side at the entrance to cover the back, things grow impossible. They’re left to duck even more and reload even more and _worry_ even more.

She’s trying her best though, and she can tell John is too. Their efforts are good enough for the moment—

_“Gatling gun! **Get down!”**_

Bonnie blinks and suddenly she is being seized to the ground, wind leaving her. It scares her to death but then shards of glass start to fly, whizzing around with bricks and marble and pellets and she doesn’t remember tensing so hard.

She is under John for a while until everything stops, and it’s back to mere bullets clipping the air; Arthur has finally shot that gunman. That causes the law’s attention to deter from John and Bonnie in the bank to the gang outside. That gives the two of them time to get away at least; catching up with the rest is impossible now. Bonnie flips on her stomach at that, and John does too— he must have been thinking the same thing.

Bonnie doesn’t realize her gun has left her until after the fact and so she crawls after it with John. Meanwhile, she couldn’t help the look she cants at him. “Next time, let’s _not_ tell Dutch we got it when we don’t, okay?”

He simply rolls his eyes— “Yeah, yeah.”— and picks up his gun when Bonnie does.

They step over glass and marble to the gaping hole Arthur’s put in the bank’s wall for escape, as quickly and quietly as they can. Then once outside, and once they’ve checked for no eyes on them, they charge after the backstreets as fast as they could.

“They’re over there! _Get ‘em!”_

More Pinkertons on the streets, and Bonnie should’ve guessed it; the bastards must have got the whole town surrounded by now. She shoots where she can because running for her life does her aim no justice. Neither did it for John, who kept aiming at the sky and at the ground.

Bonnie keeps having to shoot lawmen for every step she takes until John pulls her into a tight, dark space between a tailor’s shop and a general store— probably the best hiding spot he could find. Through the slit, Pinkertons come for them on foot and on horseback looking for them, but as long as they didn’t, Bonnie took this time wisely; she catches her breath, and so does John, wiping sweat from beneath his hat. 

“Alright,” he sighs, whispering to her. “Ain’t no way we getting past them— no way in hell.”

“God, they’re everywhere,” Bonnie whispers back. “So, what now?”

“Well, we can’t both make it— that much is clear,” he says. “So, I’ll distract them, draw ‘em off you while you go run the other way.”

Bonnie bucks her eyes at him. “After all that talk of sticking together, _now_ you wanna split up? That’s a crazy idea. We’re sticking together.”

“I’ll catch up. You just keep running, find somewhere to lie low. Don’t be worrying about me.”

Then he starts shuffling down the walls. Bonnie couldn’t have it, and she seizes his arm. “You’re staying with me, John. I mean it.”

“I’m trying to look out for _you.”_ Then he slips his arm out her grip. “Just get out of here. Please.”

He’s stubborn and she has no problem telling him this— “You’re a real bastard, John Marston...”

But he just scoffs at her. “I’ll be whatever if it means saving you.”

He’s unaffected by her words, perhaps because he knows he’s doing something gallant and brave for her sake, but hard as it is to admit, she doesn’t want him gallant or brave, she wants him safe. Those lawmen were ruthless and nasty and would do their utmost to make him suffer, as if Hosea’s death didn’t teach him that.

But he still went his way, and she found it hard to go hers when all John does is walk by and Pinkertons had him under fire, in chains. The way John struggles, the way those men hurt him… Bonnie couldn’t sit aside. She just couldn’t.

But that only made a worse mess of things. When she shoots the man who put him in chains, clean through his head, those guns aim at her now. Bullets almost scrape her multiple times and maybe that’s what has John screaming even louder than the shots. The fear of her getting hurt, the fear of their both dying by the end of this.

Still, she managed to find a mare in the nick of time. She digs her heels into the animal and sends it off with a vigorous gallop. Poor thing was fueled by fear just like the woman who rides her out of town, but Bonnie can’t think about her fear now, not when bullets whiz by her and her only thought is to escape— everything else comes later.

And it certainly does, when the sun started to set and it turned the sky a rusty, solemn red. Her mare was still galloping like she’s never done before, and Bonnie’s cool-down was anything but cool.

Hosea is dead, John’s been arrested, and the rest of the men? She has no idea.

Hardly the bank robbery she’d been hoping for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY PART ONE YOU MADE IT!!!!!! part two awaits you... 👀✨


	7. The Great American Art: Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY PART TWO!!!!! pls enjoy ;;w;; 💖💕💖💕💖💕

Bonnie has been riding so long she has become numb to the drumming sound of the mare’s gallops. The darkness around her has her consumed all around as rain pour heavy from above, thick and cold. It has her hair falling from its pins and the marshland now marking her clothes with its melting into water. It has been like this for hours now, since sundown, but she can’t complain when she hasn’t seen Pinkertons since her riding out. For now, at least. Then, the vantage point she gallops through soon shows her she is not far off from a town. A town called Van Horn, according to its sign, and the town glows uncommonly bright for a depthless storm to be passing through it.

She stops there, no townsfolk are out except for the sleeping drunkards and a postman; it takes her a while to notice him when he’s so colorless that he blends in with all the white light. But the important thing is, he looks vulnerable enough to allow her a free room out of the rain.

With that, she tests that theory, starting with a frantic jog after him. “Mister! Mister! You’ve gotta help me, my home’s been robbed by this group of bandits. I seen them kill folk, men and women and children— they’ve _decimated_ the town!”

“Oh! Ma’am, are you alright?” he reaches out to her. “Is there anything I can do?”

He took the bait. Bonnie continues to reel him in: “This group of bandits! They’ve just robbed and killed and murdered and I’m— I’m quite lost, mister! I’ve nothing left! You’ve gotta help me!”

“Of course, ma’am, of course! You’ve, uh, just missed the train, unfortunately… Will a warm bed do, ‘til the morning? I’ll have you on the morning train as soon as it comes, that way you can get yourself to some family as soon as possible!”

“Well, that sounds fine, of course, but I’ve got no money to give ya’— they done robbed me of it all!”

“No problem, you can take the room on me, ma’am! You just, you head on up them steps and it’s the farthest door to your left, okay, ma’am?”

Success. “Oh—” she sweeps her hands into her own, gripping them tight. “Oh, thank you mister, thank you so much! I am forever in your debt!”

“’Course, ma’am! ‘Course!” he nods, head bobbing like a spring. “You stay there as long as you want, just until you figure out what you wanna do!”

“Yes, yes—” she forces her voice to wobble, looking ready to sob. “Thank you, sir, thank you so much! God bless you!”

She whimpers, wails, and whines all the way to her room until she gets inside, then she shuts the door and locks it tight. It’s then that a loud, feigned hysteria shifts into a quiet, genuine sadness to rot her within.

All she can think about is Hosea. The rain has soaked the earth, the hours have passed, and he is still in the damned streets of Saint Denis, washed over and rotting. She isn’t sure who to blame for that; the Pinkertons, Dutch, or herself. His death could have been prevented had they not split up, or if Dutch had thought things through, and not underestimated the law. Looking back on the money they have now, she isn’t sure she wants a cent when Hosea’s blood lies on it.

She thinks of John too, and what Hosea said about him; that she should follow her heart regarding him. Why should she, after the things he’s put her through? But like the man said, malice does no good there. She couldn’t feel malice toward him anyway, not when the sight of him being arrested, beaten, and bruised by the law replays in her head enough to have her staring at the ceiling all night.

She knows it’s the end for them now, and for John when trial and rope awaits him. And even _that_ couldn’t shake the weight on her heart, there only comes more. Only because she can’t accept another loss, especially one that she could prevent. Only because deep down, she’s not finished with John, and won’t be for a long while yet.

The aftereffects of a bank robbery gone wrong eventually hits her, however, and she dozes off into sleep. By the following day, and the days to follow that one, she stays in Van Horn if only to wait out the mess made in Saint Denis. The pale postman was kind enough to extend her stay in the hotel room, and even gave her money for better clothes. Bonnie most definitely appreciated it, but she had to move on, and so on a misty and early morning, she does; she saddles in the first horse she sees, then rides quietly out of town.

Riding through the wood, she isn’t sure what her next step is except to find another spot to lie low; a big city like Saint Denis needs longer than a week to recover from a catastrophe. Then, she needs time to think things through. Things like John Marston.

“Miss MacFarlane!”

She yanks her mount into a stop right when a voice calls out to her just before the crossing over a creek. She hasn’t any clue who the voice is, and the pure darkness around her puts her on an even greater guard when she couldn’t possibly find out with her eyes. She digs into the saddlebag for a gun.

Then horse hooves come galloping toward her left and when her hand flies up next, it’s with a pistol in its clutches pointed right at the sound.

A horse yields with a loud whinny, but the man who rides it…

“Charles!”

She is sliding down her saddle one moment and running to get in the man’s arms the next. And he hugs just as earnestly, causing a hug and a shared chuckle to last a while.

When Bonnie parts from him, it’s with a bright smile. “My word! I should’ve known _you’d_ be in one piece!”

He chuckles at her. “It’s a surprise for me too.”

That gives them both a laugh to share while her hands remained tight at his forearms, sighing a relief she didn’t think she’d get after everything. “Well, it’s so good to see you!” she beams. “Where ya’ been? Where ya’ headed?”

“Back to camp, of course,” he tells her, and he leaves her to go to his mount; seems he too had to steal a horse. “Dutch and the others have found passage on some boat to wait out the fuss, so we’ll need to prepare for their coming back. Keep everyone together while they’re gone.”

“I see,” Bonnie nods. “And the money?”

“It’s safe, I imagine,” Charles is about to cluck his mount off, but he gives her one last look. “What about you? You coming with me?”

Bonnie probably shouldn’t, when everyone knows she’s not a part of the gang anymore, but she has her own reasons. So, she goes to her stallion with a nod. “Yeah, I’ll ride with ya’.”

With her mounting up, it marked the start of their ride back to Shady Belle. They ride slow and quiet through the mist, so as not to attract any unwarranted attention; they both make sure to check their surroundings, for the Pinkertons follow folks around like Colonel Waxman on a jolly. Eventually, though, quiet focus becomes conversation at Charles’ speech: “I thought you was done with us, if I’m honest. You must really need your money.”

“Ah, maybe, but…” Bonnie trails off with a sigh. “There’s something else, and I reckon I need y’all’s help. Before that though, you never did tell me what happened to ya’. We lost you folks, John and I.”

“Oh, we ended up in the docks,” Charles went on. “Had to hole ourselves in a room too, ‘til the coast was clear. There were still patrols everywhere, but I kept them busy. Gave them rest of them time to slip away with our money.”

That makes Bonnie hum. “That was brave,” she commends him. “I know it was hard getting them off your tail. Me and John couldn’t catch up with you because of it. Law was everywhere.”

She hears Charles huff something like a laugh. “I know… Say, what happened to John? Is he with you or did you two split up for now?”

Just talking about it draws a heavy sigh out of her. “The fool got himself arrested trying to save my ass,” she tells him with a slight blame. Blame toward herself. “I tried to help, but I couldn’t.”

Charles shares her frustration then, in the form of a low groan. “Damn. Is that what you need help with then?”

“Yes,” Bonnie answers truthfully, though she still chews her lip. “I was thinking, the law might want to take it slow with him, seeing as he’s had a bounty on his head for Lord knows how long. Then they won’t kill him before he squeals about Dutch.”

“Which… he won’t.”

“Right, and maybe that could buy us some time, to look for him, to find out where they’re taking him and what they’ll do, Lord forbid. I just don’t wanna leave nothing at a chance. The law got a bad way of treating bad men, of course, but… if he’s alive, we… _I’ve_ got to try to save him.”

“Of course. Help me get everyone accounted for, then I’ll help in any way I can. Mrs. Adler will too; I reckon she’s got a keen eye for this sort of thing.”

Even if something told her she could, being able to count on Charles sweeps all her anxiety away with a happy relief. “Thank you, Charles,” she makes sure to say. “And… you saw what happened with Hosea.”

“Yeah,” she makes his tone go low, speaking from sorrow. “Those bastards. We should go back and bury him; a man like Hosea doesn’t deserve to be left to rot like that.”

“Exactly what I feel,” Bonnie sighs. “What about the rest of the boys? Arthur and young Lenny? They make it out okay?”

She hears him grimace at Lenny’s name, and she isn’t sure why until— “Not Lenny. He’s… he’s dead too.”

That makes her heart leap for her throat. _“What?”_

“Yeah. Bastards killed him too, on the rooftops. They’re _animals.”_

“Damn right they are! Poor boy, he was just a kid, and so much life ahead of him too…”

She finds herself choking over those words. Another child, like her brother, killed way before his time. She has to shake away the sadness coming to her throat and eyes. “We’ll go back and bury him too.”

As if Hosea’s death couldn’t deter her any farther from that money. That bank heist truly was a mess. “We will,” Charles sighs.

They continue to ride through the misty morning and well into the noon hours when the sun is just about to hit the horizon. The mist evaporated. Patrols weren’t an issue for the most part of their ride, that is until they crossed the northern borders back into the south; riding _around_ Saint Denis still didn’t keep them from seeing a lawman itching to put a bullet in their backs. It was a long process, but eventually they make it back to Shady Belle, safe and sound.

Karen greeted them by the front gates. “Who the hell is that?”

And Charles answered, “It’s us!”

She lowered her gun after that, with a genuine relief. “Shit! I thought y’all wouldn’t ever come back! Where y’all been? Any sign of the others?”

Bonnie answered her next when Charles takes both their horses to tether. “They’ve caught a boat, apparently. Charles says they’ll be picking us all up soon once the Pinkertons have forgotten about us.”

“And they certainly haven’t yet,” Charles said with irony; the ridiculous amount of men Milton had sent out on patrol was a little funny. “How is everyone, Karen?” he asked next.

Then she smirked, leading them inside. “They’ll be happy to see y’all for sure.”

And she was right when after announcing their arrival, the last of the gang, the women and the non-fighting men, came running to say hello. All of them asked the same questions, and Charles and Bonnie gave them the same answers: the money was safe, and the big guns would be returning for them all later. Along with that, Charles told the bad, that John has been arrested and Hosea and Lenny have been killed. It was just as sad for them to hear as it was for Charles and Bonnie to witness, and while they waited for Dutch’s return, everyone busied themselves with staying true to Hosea and Lenny’s memories.

That was _weeks_ ago. Now, on a hot afternoon, tensions are high. Now, whoever could hold a gun and keep a clear head are always out finding any sign of Dutch or Arthur, and they come up short each time. Without any type of direction, the gang is weak and frenzied, and the Pinkertons have all the direction they can get when their numbers have been growing ever since the bank robbery. It’s a miracle they haven’t found all of them by this point because the scary reality is, they most definitely could if they tried.

Miss Grimshaw is attempting to hold the reins, nonetheless, trying to keep everyone calm and together even when she herself seems like she has swallowed a box of fireworks. Tilly and Karen are the ones to keep guard of the front and rear of the land for now, and everyone else is waiting for Charles’ return from another hopeful search. He comes riding in soon enough.

Bonnie is jogging from her seat on the porch by then, and so is Sadie from a tree. “How’d it go?” Bonnie asks him first thing.

When he dismounts all slow and frustrated like he does, she should have known: “Still no sign of them. There’s just Pinkerton patrol. _Everywhere._ I don’t know what the hell’s happened to them.. _.”_

“Well, those Pinkertons’ll be coming _here_ if we ain’t careful,” Sadie urges. “We’ve gotta start moving.”

That draws a sigh out of Bonnie. “Yes, of course, but where? There ain’t no place we can go without them assholes tailing us there…”

“I—I think I know a spot!”

Heads turn, and find Strauss walking up to them with a map in his hands. It’s Charles who slopes his head: “Oh?”

“I’m correct about this place I see,” the man goes on, and turns the paper just right so the three of them can see. Then, he points to their spot. “It’s called Lakay, hidden in the swamps outside Saint Denis,” he says. “It may be a bit of a risk with it being so close, but the Night Folk lurk there.”

Sadie curls her brow at him. “Night Folk?”

“That’s right,” Strauss nods. “The locals steer quite clear of the place because of those degenerates who live there, and the Pinkertons too I presume. That should buy us some time, will it not?”

There comes a moment where they all think about it, then Sadie beams all sudden-like. “Huh! Sure will!” her hand comes to pat hard on Strauss’ back. “Good thinking there, Leopold!”

Poor man’s nerves are too frayed for praise like that with his jumping like a cat at it, but he continues to address them, nonetheless. “Shall I inform Susan of our plans so we can start packing our things?” He is just as eager as everyone else to leave.

“Um, yeah!” Charles nods. “We’ll ride ahead, root those Night Folk out, I suppose. One of us’ll be coming back for the rest of you when it’s clear.” He starts his walk to his horse then, motioning at Bonnie and Sadie. “Ladies?”

At that, they too mount up and ride on for the bayou. Charles leads them through the long way, past Caliga Hall and through Rhodes, but the long way is more discreet when they barely run into patrol on the way. Meanwhile, the ride is quiet while the sun sets, and the dirt turns into marsh the closer they get to their destination. That is, until Sadie speaks.

“How dangerous are these Night Folk anyway?” she asks.

“Now that I think about it, I think I’ve heard talk of them,” Charles answers. “They’re a bit like the Murfree Broods; a band of crazed serial killers you never did see…”

Hearing that name again… Bonnie hasn’t heard it since Hosea and Arthur picked her up all those months ago and it sent bitterness up her spine. “The kind to dismember and ruin a man ‘stead of robbing them and leaving them to it? Yeah, I know all too well about them.”

She gets a peering from Sadie. “You must’ve had dealings with them.”

_Dealings?_ Bonnie scoffs. “Them the bastards that killed the last of my family.”

Charles had already known about that, and she thought Sadie did too, but clearly not when she looks at her with shock and empathy. “Damn. Sorry to hear that. I know something of that too, you know.”

When those men burned her ranch and killed her husband. Bonnie remembers getting told about that at Horseshoe. “I know you do.”

Then somehow, Sadie manages to smirk. “Well then, I’ll say this, from a widowed woman to a bereaved woman; this killing’ll be fun.”

She chuckles, though Bonnie couldn’t find it in her to do the same. She could only succumb to a fluttering stomach and her blood curling the closer they get to this Lakay. It won’t be fun, of that Bonnie disagrees with, but it could be practice. On what, she isn’t sure… at least about doing it.

By nightfall, they reach their spot. They leave their horses away from the action, empty their saddlebags of whatever weapons they can carry, then prod their way to a vantage point.

Charles gets out binoculars once they’re there, and Bonnie waits on the latter side of him for direction with Sadie. Soon enough, he whispers it: “Place is blazing with light, no one out front. They must all be in the hut.”

“Okay,” Sadie nods, lip twisting in thought. “We can head on in there and start shooting to draw them out that way we can just pop them as they come. How’s that sound? May be dangerous, but we’re decent shots.”

It _is_ dangerous, so Bonnie gives an alternative: “Eh, I say we draw them out with dynamite so we can get time to corner them while they check out the noise.”

Their views differ, so they look to Charles for the deciding vote. “What you think, Charles?” goes Sadie.

He takes a moment to answer, thinking, but eventually he does answer as he gets up on his fours, moving ahead. “I agree with Miss MacFarlane; dynamite’s safer.” He pulls out a few sticks from his holster. “Come on then, let’s get this done.”

Sadie doesn’t argue to that, following alongside him and Bonnie. The closer they approach, the more this smell swells in the air, something like carcass and human funk. Someone’s chopping something in the hut too, something Bonnie has a funny feeling isn’t animal meat.

Charles gets into position behind a tree. So does Sadie and Bonnie. Then, Charles lights a stick’s fuse and hauls it over the hut. It blows not even a minute later, and just as Bonnie thought, the Night Folk come out. They’re of varying walks of life lathered in mud and white paint, and eerily quiet for a group who’s just had their land attacked.

Nevertheless, when Charles shoots one of them through the head, the battle begins.

They erupt with noise, louder than the gunshots. A choir of cries, or… _animal noises?_

One of them really does come sprinting after Bonnie and roaring like a lion, the oddest thing she’s ever seen. Still, one quick shot through the neck and he’s handled. The rumors are proven to be true the more they advance on this group; a creepy, foul bunch who feasts on more humans than animals. Bonnie feels like being in the same vicinity as the group is a cardinal sin and not killing them, but they are killed one way or another. At the end, Bonnie is not scratched so much as she is creeped out.

Sadie calls from the far side of the area, “Is that the last of them?”

“Yeah!” Charles hollers from behind the hut. “Is everyone alright?”

Bonnie answers from the front, “I reckon so—”

Then something heavy comes _hard_ against her back, sending her face-first into the mud. Isn’t sure what until a war cry goes in her ear, rattling her ear drum. It’s on its way to straddling her but not before Bonnie forces them to flip over.

She barely makes out Sadie from this Night-person’s screams: “Shit! You got him? I ain’t got a clear shot!”

“I got him—”

Hands clamp her throat, _tight._ Squeezing and clenching and sending all the oxygen out of her. She’s light-headed trying to scratch at, punch at, pull at that hold, then she catches a face behind all that white paint…

And she stabs him. Lodges the blade _deep_ through the man’s abdomen. His sounds have stopped, he’s hurling over now, but that’s not enough. Bonnie stabs him again, and again, _and again—_

She blinks, then finds herself hovering over a lifeless body. Red is dripping down her face, right alongside the mud. She bends down and seizes his face, looks closely.

Then Charles’ voice makes her jump. “Are you okay?”

Bonnie meets the gaze of a friend worried sick. That helps her come to, though it doesn’t help her heart, sunken into her stomach.

“Fine, I’m fine,” she breathes, pointing at the dead man. “I thought that was… I thought…”

“You thought that was him. Your murderer.”

Sadie says that. Of course she understands. Bonnie can barely make her head nod.

“You’ll get him, miss. One day, you surely shall.”

Then she gets a pat on her back, and hears footsteps prodding away. Somehow, all she can think is, _I hope so._

The rest of the night is lost to removing bodies off the land and feeding them to hungry gators, at least on Bonnie and Charles’ behalf. Sadie went off to fetch the rest of the gang, and so she did as by the next morning, they all came in wagon after wagon. Miss Grimshaw and Pearson did their usual for that week, unpacking luggage and designating rooms, until Lakay became their new home while waiting for the rest of the guns. Food was an issue and so was morale, but the only thing left to do is to survive.

Things needed to be done still, like burying Hosea and Lenny. They got to it one night when Charles and Karen went to rob the morgue of their bodies, and they buried them together in Bluewater Marsh. Charles cut his hair to grieve for them too when he finally got the chance, said it was traditional of his culture to do so and Bonnie enjoyed listening to the story behind that. It distracted her from her own troubles, but not for long.

While unpacking, she spotted that handkerchief. Old now, and collecting cobwebs since it was given to her, but the “JM” remained in its perfect stitching, in perfect form and color. Bonnie got close to weeping over it before putting it somewhere safe, only because she hadn’t a real solution to her problem. How was she going to get John back? How does she know he isn’t dead already?

But she forges a solution, no matter what. And ends up finding it on an overcast day, in Sadie Adler.

Bonnie catches her after she is just relieved from guard duty. “Sadie, can I ask you a favor?”

She sets her gun aside and flops down in a chair. “Probably not.”

That response drew a sigh out of Bonnie, for she had a feeling walking to her that this conversation wouldn’t go anywhere. Even so, she continues to try: “Listen, I’m sorry to ask with all this upheaval going on, but I’m… I’m still worried. About John. It’s been a couple of weeks now, we ought to start looking for him, ‘fore it’s too late.”

She gets a scoff from Sadie. “And you really think the Pinkertons have left him alive all this time?”

“John” and “death” being implied in the same sentence only sets Bonnie’s teeth even more on edge. “I thought about that, I did,” she says. “But we’ve still gotta try. I just want to take a look is all, and Charles said you might help me? I can’t do this alone, I ain’t used to it.”

“What tells you _I_ am?”

Bonnie’s sigh is heavy this time. _“Please._ It may be hard to do, it may be real inconvenient, it may be John is already dead, yes. I know. But… we’ve got to try. We just got to. _Please.”_

She just gets this look from Sadie, as if she didn’t feel like it, didn’t agree to it. But Bonnie never does well with unfinished stories because nothing is worse than her imaginings. And if John _is_ dead, she’d rather face it than be stripped of another night of sleep. She just needs answers…

Then suddenly Sadie rolls her eyes, sighing and standing from her chair. “Alright, alright. Meet me by Caliga Hall in a few days. I’ll do some scouting.”

Relief has never hit Bonnie harder. “Thank you.”

“Uh-huh.” Sadie picks her gun back up and starts after her horse, though not before she casts her one last look. “You really do like that John Marston, don’t ya’?”

Bonnie huffed something like a laugh at that, and so does Sadie as she rides away.

Bonnie was just allowing her heart a voice, just like Hosea told her to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> COMMENTS ARE FUCKING AWESOME and you should comment. let me love on you 😤💖


	8. O, Darling, Where Art Thou?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AYEEE THIS TOOK ME FOUR MONTHS TO MAKE BUT I DID IT YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY   
> won't lie this chapter gets sad after the first section SO YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! Get ya tissues out my boyeeessssss  
> Also this chapter is long but... when do I not write long ass chapters LMAO PLEASE ENJOY PLEASE ENJOY 💖💖💖💖

Days pass, the right amount for Bonnie to go looking for Sadie at Caliga Hall. However, for a reason that she couldn’t name, Sadie is not there like she said she would be. Bonnie would end up searching for her a good while but is ultimately met with a charred house and men telling her to clear out or she would get shot. Asking them if they’d seen a blond woman yay-high is clearly a bad idea, so she moves on. Something tells her to continue riding ahead though, all the way to Rhodes.

Sure enough, Sadie and her horse turns up there, resting outside of the post office. Bonnie hitches Lilibet nearby and slides down her saddle with irritation, an emotion that only swells when she sees Sadie’s nerve to smile at her walking up: “Hey! You found me!”

Bonnie’s eyes roll— “I thought you said to meet you at Caliga Hall.”—but she drops it, seeing no need in a quarrel. “Well,” she begins with a sigh. “What happened? Did you find anything out?”

“Mm, not yet, but I reckon I got a plan to,” Sadie begins. “We’ll head out for the one place ain’t nobody’s gonna be expecting us, ask around there, maybe starting with the restaurants— and not the low-down ones, but the fancy ones. We’ll dress ourselves up too.” Suddenly, a box is thrown in Bonnie’s arms, one she didn’t see there. “Here.”

With that, Sadie starts off after the general store, and Bonnie follows willingly but with questions. “So… where’s the one place ain’t no one’s gonna be expecting us?”

Her question earns her a look. “Well, what do ya’ think? Saint Denis!”

Now she returns that look. “Saint Denis? That’s batshit. Ain’t no one even been back there yet to see how things lie!”

“That don’t matter, not if we keep our noses clean and if we do this right, which we will,” Sadie swats her off. “If not, we’ll just settle things like we know how, alright?”

“Well, how’re we getting in there? We can’t ride in there like some pair of country cowgirls.”

“And we ain’t! We’re gonna take a coach, like some proper ladies, but discreet. You know how this goes!”

Bonnie can’t help her scoff. “Ain’t too sure I do…”

Sadie doesn’t bother with a “hello” to the storekeeper when she barges into the general store, exactly like a bat out of hell. Bonnie does the greetings for her, at least until she is pushed inside of a dressing room. Then, Sadie speaks to her outside of the door, “Meet me outside when you’re done!”

A raging feeling that anything could go south along Sadie’s side overwhelms Bonnie. The woman is a walking firework, but unfortunately her best bet at finding out about John without Charles. Bonnie didn’t want to bother the man anyway when some business up north has got his plate full now, something to do with the remaining Indians in the area. So, here she is.

The frock in the box consists of a dainty white blouse, a coral-colored dress, and a sash with a shimmery gold buckle on it. She has a hat too, trussed up with white veil and vibrant red roses. She gets it all on and leaves the store to meet Sadie with a similar outfit, only her dress is colored a muted teal, and her hat is decorated with wildflowers.

With that, Sadie begins the walk to the stagecoach at the end of the road. “Ready?”

And Bonnie follows her. “Ready.”

Their walks are with determination and grit, the only thing keeping them from looking like a marching militia are their costumes. Then, Sadie suddenly halts. “Oh, and if anyone asks, we’re sisters. I’m the eldest.”

She picks the walk back up, and Bonnie too this time with furrowed brows. “We’re sisters, and you’re the eldest?”

“Right. And we’re visiting our daddy who’s ill with the sweating sickness. It’s the little details like that that gets folk over to your side, you see.”

An oddly specific story that she is proud of when her hums comes out melodic like it does. Bonnie still isn’t confident, for she knows full well the woman is winging her every move, but it’s better this action finding out about John than no action at all. And she unfortunately has no better idea.

The stagecoach driver meets them with a smile yet with eyes that stare intently at their scars, a contrast to the lifestyle their outfits convey. Even so, when Sadie pays him a tidy sum for a ride into Saint Denis, he obliges with no questions needs asking.

There isn’t too lengthy a ride from Rhodes to Saint Denis, but the two of them settle in as if it would be. Bonnie must, if she is to have a clear mind going into something that could kill them that very day. To herself, she is praying she can still be on the world that she watches pass from the coach window, hopefully with information on John.

By the time they pass Caliga Hall, it’s only then does the silence get interrupted with Sadie clearing her throat. “So, I’ll be honest with ya’; I thought you was done with us.”

A hum escapes Bonnie; _who didn’t?_ “I think we all thought that. Including me.”

“And John’s what’s kept ya’? Figured all that business with Miss Roberts would’ve had you moving on.”

Bonnie looks up, eyebrow sloped. “Do you folks want me to move on?”

Sadie shrugs. “Don’t think so,” she says. “I just reckoned it would discourage you is all. I do wonder though, if once you’ve got your money John’ll be coming with ya’, wherever you’re going. He does seem pretty attached to this bunch.”

That is a conclusion that Bonnie agrees with, however in the form of a scoff. “I doubt he cares about me _that_ much.” She knows she does, however disappointing it is; she cares too much about a man who came too close in making her his mistress. 

So, with this information that she is sure Sadie knows of, her chuckle comes as a surprise. “Now _that_ is something I doubt,” she says. “He cares about you, now. Even I can see that. And you too, changing your tune like you is.”

Everyone has got Bonnie read like a book, a fact that still causes her to feign ignorance in her swatting Sadie away, if only to hide her cheeks growing warm. “You don’t know that…”

“I do! I’ve been there,” Sadie chuckles. “That’s how I was with my Jake at first, all hard and mean. Man was a soft touch, and I don’t like no mushy man, but… he grew on me. Ended up being the greatest thing I’d ever hope to get in my life.”

Amusement already took its shape in her mood and tone, but at that remark, it withered away. “He was a good man, my Jakey.”

It is a sight to make Bonnie’s heart ache with sympathy. “I’m sorry about that, you know. I never told you how sorry I was way back when, but we were both grieving then.”

She gives Sadie a sad smile that she only nods at. “I know,” she says. “But those bastards are gonna pay for what they did. I’m gonna make sure of it.”

With her eyes glinting with such sudden vengeance and her voice growing a venomous edge, Bonnie believes her. Believes her and admires it, for a hope takes her. A hope that she could one day do the same.

There goes a couple of more minutes before they are crossing the bridge into Saint Denis. They are dropped off in the heart of the town, where historical statues and posh gardens and posher people lay. For two countrified outlaws, it satisfies Bonnie to find the two of them fit in, and she is thinking they will continue to fit in until a hard, rough push comes to her shoulder.

“Alright, come on, let’s get going.”

Sadie forces them both into a brisk walk, _too_ brisk, and Bonnie yanks away, her whisper coming out sharply: “Look, now that we’re in this highfaluting town, can we at least _walk_ like some highfalut-ers? Give me your damn arm and let’s do this right!”

Bonnie now takes the reins, forcing them into a walk without hurry and with grace, arms looped and truly looking like sisters truly visiting their father who’s only a moment to live. All the while, Bonnie ignores Sadie, groaning and rolling her eyes, until something useful comes out of her mouth like their next course of action.

“Let’s start at that restaurant over there,” she whispers, pointing at their destination at the end of the long, crowded pavement. “We go in calm, quick, and elegant.”

That draws a scoff out of Bonnie. “Those words is rich coming from you.”

But calm, quick, and elegant they go into the restaurant, nevertheless. And they go into the next restaurant calmly, quickly, and elegantly, and the next restaurant, and the next restaurant, until sundown when a conclusion finally forms; there is nothing to discover but rich people and their richer ways. Even so, Bonnie fights a waning patience into one last restaurant, dragging Sadie with her. And her patience is _completely_ gone.

This one is across the Théâtre Râleur, and stinking inside of fresh wax from the candles, fresh tobacco from cigars, and fresh pomade reeking off the receptionist’s hair. He greets them with a smile that Bonnie forces herself to return; Sadie doesn’t even try.

“Good evening, ladies,” he bows his head. “What can I do for you?”

“Well, we can always start with a table,” Sadie spits, and Bonnie’s foot instinctively goes to kick.

“Ah… to tell the truth, we are awfully packed this evening. I’m afraid we have no other tables left to seat you. Would you like to reserve a seat for a later date?”

A bummer that drops Bonnie’s stomach. She opens her mouth to speak, but— “You best _make_ a table! We’re hungry, and damn tired.”

A glare comes out of Bonnie, one she can’t hide this time, while the receptionist grows tickled, ironically. “Oh, what wonders this earth would see if one could make a table. Unfortunately, madam, I am not one of those people. I’m afraid you will have to reserve a table for later, for that is the only option—”

“We ain’t reserving nothing!”

Bonnie blinks and suddenly the receptionist’s neck is being forced against a revolver— _Sadie’s_ revolver. “Now you got five seconds to forge us a table,” the woman grits, “otherwise I’m killing somebody, and it might be you, you understand? Now get a move on!”

So, he does, scurrying off like a frightened, little animal in the big, unforgiving wild. It would have been funny in a situation that didn’t call for _discretion_. Bonnie’s frown is heavy. “Real smart, numb nut! What the hell you call that?”

“Look— we’ve been here all day! Way I figure it, we might as well try everything up to this point, and I mean _everything.”_

“Well, what the hell’s the gun for? Ain’t no one in this town’s a threat like that, ‘cept for the law!”

_“Precaution,_ girlie! Every heard of that before?”

Bonnie gives up at that point, rolling her eyes. There is no time to argue anyway when the receptionist comes back, now with a brand-new table and with fear that has him out of his mind. Poor thing, even when Bonnie excuses Sadie behind her back, he continues to shake like a leaf.

Their table is at the restaurant’s siding, near the windows that overlook the streets, now waning in populace. It is full inside the restaurant, however, just as the receptionist said, and a busy night for the many workers that zigzag about the place. One tends to the two of them eventually, with Bonnie asking for a small order of food and Sadie asking for a bigger one— naturally.

And while they wait with their wine, Sadie eyes the menu and Bonnie eyes her surroundings. The huge chandeliers drooping from the high ceiling, the toned and paisley red of the wallpapers, the group of loud and countrified men at the restaurant’s center…

Bonnie slopes her head, staring. Some of them are drunk on wine and others are stuffing themselves with decadent food, working the poor waiters to the bone. The fact is, in a land of upturned noses and uppity ways, they are an oddity.

“Who are those folks? Wonder what they’re doing here…”

Sadie’s whisper tells Bonnie she is thinking the same. “I wonder too,” she responds.

“You think they may know something? They look like bounty hunters.”

On second thought, they do. They may have a good bit of money from a bounty and are spending it all there for the sake of celebration. With that, Bonnie’s eyes fall to her wine glass, and her ears focus yonder. “We’ll listen to ‘em,” she tells Sadie. “Keep your head down.”

Meanwhile, the bubbles in her wine fizz and pop, and the men’s volumes bounce off the walls.

“That Lindsey Wofford had a good price on his head! Boy had a whole lotta guns with him, but it weren’t nothing to a militia, now was it?”

“Yeah, you got that right! Still got my eyes out for that Dutch van der Linde fella. You remember his price? A damn good one. Fine pay.”

“That’s with his little lackeys too! That Arthur Morgan fella… Hell, I hear tell John Marston’s got a good price too!”

“Aw, nah. Not John Marston. He’s a lost cause.”

“Yeah? Why you say that?”

“Ain’t you heard about the bank robbery that happened here a few weeks back? He was one of the conspirators it said in the paper. Anyways, the law’s done taken him in. Ain’t no way we getting money off him now.”

“Uh— where’d they take him exactly?”

Sadie’s voice makes Bonnie look up and the whole restaurant fall into an eerie silence. Once again, Bonnie’s foot kicks at Sadie on instinct.

Meanwhile, the men cast her a dirty look. “What’s it to you?” one of them goes. “Business like that ain’t fit for a lady like you. Stick to your stitching and your cooking; they do your vapors some greater good.”

Now laughter bounces off the walls, loud enough to ring Bonnie’s ears. The effect it has on Sadie is obvious with her red face and Bonnie does her best trying to dim that spark: “Never-mind them, they probably don’t know nothing—”

“Yes they do! Or that man wouldn’t have gone acting like someone hurt his pride, what little he has…”

Her look down on the very man, and it is all it takes to wipe his smile away like the strike of a match. It pits Bonnie’s stomach into a fall and the men egging things on with their hoots and hollers make it no better. Sadie continues nonetheless, with an even greater scowl: “Now stop toying around and answer the damn question.”

Silence comes, a tense one with no noise but the chandeliers’ slight swings from above, then…

“Well, little lady, you got an awful cheek, seeing as we menfolk wasn’t even talking to you in the first place. See, and that’s just what’s wrong with this picture: you’re _womenfolk,_ not _menfolk._ So, bottom fact is you ain’t supposed to be in our business no how, iff’n I ain’t already told you that. So, you best sit yourself down and stay in a lady’s business, otherwise you got another thing coming, you understand—”

“I’ll get in any goddamn business I please!”

Screams erupt, chairs fly aside, and all because Sadie has her revolver drawn and pointing right between the bounty hunter’s eyes. In turn, the men have their hands on their guns, ready to draw, and Bonnie is standing, caught in the middle and wishing Sadie hadn’t put her there.

“Well shit!” one of them guffaws. “Don’t tell this little prairie tramp nothing!”

“You tell us where John Marston is or you’re dead!”

“The key to business is to mind your own, missy!”

Sadie’s groan is heavy— “You miserable hick sacks of _shit!”—_ then a crack explodes off the walls.

A trail of blood splats onto the white of the tablecloths, straight from the bounty hunter’s stomach, and it marks the beginning of something Bonnie tried hard to avoid. But the screams that break out and the bullets that whizz around shattering all in its path is something she had a feeling would come.

She finds a table and bolts after it, flipping it over with all her strength. Sadie does the same and they both take cover, one shooting and one avoiding bullets until Bonnie’s irritation gives her strength to yell over the lead: _“You better make something happen at the end of all this! I don’t even have no gun while you’ve gone and done this asinine shit!”_

_“Oh, shut up, will ya’?”_ Sadie hollers back, then after a turn toward her left, she slides a revolver toward Bonnie. _“Here; you want something to happen, leave one of them alive!”_

And after checking inside the gun’s chambers, loaded hot, she does her best. For a group boasting about their outsmarting and outdoing another gang, their numbers aren’t super high, and it must have been down to luck; Bonnie shoots only two bullets before the restaurant grows quiet again, limited to the civilians’ whimpering and the men’s groaning— the ones that didn’t immediately die getting shot.

The main man, however, is still alive and is twisting and turning right alongside his comrades. Bonnie observes this while Sadie ends the suffering of those other bounty hunters until she finally stomps before Bonnie to bring her foot down on the main man’s wrist. It breaks his white-knuckled grip on his pistol.

She aims her gun right for his head, yelling over his grimaces. “John Marston. Where is he?”

The bounty hunter swallows, groans, and whimpers before he talks, and only just. “He… he ain’t here. He been moved… up to the penitentiary… Sis—Sisika…”

His words slump Bonnie’s shoulders. “A _penitentiary?_ Oh, good grief…”

“We’ll figure something out, now stop fretting,” Sadie quickly reaches out to calm her, but a hole remains in her stomach. Then, Sadie continues to interrogate the man under her boot, gritting. “Anything else you know?”

“They got him on a chain gang… scheduled to hang soon… That’s— that’s all I know… _honest!”_

The law meant to hang John from the start, Bonnie knew that. But hearing it confirmed, stated so set in stone, added on a new weight to her already heavy heart. However, a crack and flash went off before her and it snapped her out of an anxiety that itched to reclaim her. Sadie killed the bounty hunter.

“So, John is working on a chain gang at Sisika Penitentiary, scheduled to hang,” she says, as if the words didn’t hit her with a ton of bricks.

Bonnie clenches her head. “Rescuing him’s gonna be hell without Arthur and the boys…”

“And they’ll be back. Don’t fret, I said!” she earns a light push on the shoulder from Sadie. “We’ll get John then, and it won’t be long I’m sure—”

“Ain’t no telling, though. They may not come back for a long while yet if they ain’t here _now._ All that time’s gonna pass, and by then, John might be—”

“If they’ve left him alive this long, they’re sure to leave alive a lot longer, bet on that. Now calm yourself,” Sadie extends a hand. “Everything’s gonna get worked out. We just need to figure on a plan—”

Now something stops Sadie, way off outside the restaurant’s doors. Horse hooves and whistles.

“Shit. The law’s here. Come on!”

Sadie bolts for the restaurant’s back, where doors leading to escape lay, and Bonnie follows suit. “What we doing?” she asks.

“What do you think? What we know!”

Shooting first and debating second. After what has happened in the restaurant, Bonnie is growing tired of constantly pulling her trigger, but she has no choice. Especially when as soon as she uses her strength and Sadie’s to burst the doors open, exiting into the slums, the law greet them with their guns at the ready. 

Horses are at the end of the street, and Bonnie dodges bullets after them. It is a struggle for a moment getting into the stallion’s saddle when the poor animal is beside himself with fear, but luckily able to listen as he sends off into a strong gallop once Bonnie has her heels dug into him. He goes where Bonnie tells, unfortunately a zip and zoom about all the twists and turns that make up the city’s roads, and for every turn, a lawman waits to shoot her head clean off; Saint Denis seems to have tripled their guard after the bank robbery.

Nonetheless, brains and brawn lead her and Sadie to the bridge in short enough time and after enough bloodshed. Things don’t get truly quiet again until after a gallop through the swamps, however, nearing Shady Belle. Then, once outside the Gray’s tobacco fields, they finally stop.

The trees gently giving way to the breeze is a calming sound, but not calming enough to tempt Bonnie’s heart, racing with all its power; having to shoot with no more than three bullets and no extra ammo does that. Meanwhile, Sadie is naturally in raptures: “Alright, reckon we’re in the clear, and have finally got information on your man.”

“I just hope you’re talking true on that planning,” Bonnie sighs. “We’ve made an even bigger mess of things in Saint Denis too… Lord, will I ever be able to do anything anymore without it ending in a shootout…”

A rhetorical and exhausted question that Sadie answers in a predictable way: with a cheeky smile and an even cheekier laugh. “Not anymore! Now, come on. Let’s get back to camp before the law catches up.”

This they do, Bonnie shaking herself the entire way. However, she admits that there is a good among all this bad; they do have a steppingstone on John now.

The question is, what will be done about that steppingstone now that they have it?

* * *

The days forge on, slow and murky and gray. The weather offers nothing but heavy rain now, making the grounds feel like water and staining everything inside the hut with mud. Camp operates as it can, nonetheless, as Pearson continues to fit in trips to the general store and the ladies help to keep the hut tidy as best they can with Bonnie’s and the able-bodied men’s help. The only abnormality now, aside from the boys being gone, is Molly O’Shea’s absence— Dutch’s sweetheart, if Bonnie remembers right. She left for town days ago and has been gone ever since, perhaps to get over an overwhelming loneliness, something that Bonnie can relate to. _Poor John…_ a prayer for his health and his welfare never strays out of her thoughts. 

Sun comes in the next weekend, however, at least in camp; the men begin to show up. Micah arrives first, an event that doesn’t make Bonnie’s heart jump for joy, but his being alive is good enough news. He wanted to boast about his travels and exploits, but a good plate of food shut him up— _thank God._

Midday comes, and Bonnie finds herself with nothing better to do than to help Pearson with dinner. Sadie does too, with this and that; an odd thing when last she tried, it ended in her swinging her knife in Pearson’s face. That’s a memory that makes Bonnie laugh.

And as she laughs, a gallop goes from the gates. It doesn’t draw Bonnie from her chopping away at the red meat for the stew, however, as it’s probably Molly O’Shea coming back from her lengthy business in town—

“Arthur! Arthur’s here!”

_That_ draws her attention, right into a bright smile and arms open wide. “First, we settle into hell on earth, then you turn up… Can my days get any worse?”

She makes sure to squeeze him tight, and he does just the same with his chuckle. He’s grown more hairs and has grown noticeably thin, and she can hear an odd amount of phlegm in his lungs from each of his breaths, but she didn’t dwell on all that. She couldn’t when his being alive is enough to dwell on. Some good news at last.

She takes him by his broad shoulders into the hut and out of the rain, where he gets all the hugs and smiles and love he rightfully deserves. With a plate of food and a comfortable seat, he receives a heap of information as to what’s been what: John’s arrest, Hosea and Lenny’s burial in Bluewater Marsh, etcetera. He gives back information too, which isn’t too good: the bank money is at the bottom of the sea, _Guarma’s_ seas, lost forever.

To say the group gets disappointed at his news is an understatement. Here comes yet another long, long while of poverty and an even longer while of thieving to dreams. Bonnie is not so happy either, seeing as the money was her ticket away from this life, but a hope that Dutch will figure something out keeps her head from hanging too low. All this time on her lonesome has given her insight on what truly matters to her anyway, and it isn’t money.

People go their separate ways even by the end of all that, including Bonnie. That is, until seeing Arthur back in his own clothes and in his own space again is a pleasant sight. He is huddling warm by the fire, and Bonnie goes to talk to him, bringing a blanket and a smile with her.

Then, his heavy cough stops her in her tracks. It causes her to guffaw. “Quite a cough you got there,” she jokes. “I had a feeling you picked up a bug from that place you been.”

She still approaches him, to drape the blanket along his shoulders while he lets out a light laugh. “I must have,” he shrugs.

“Maybe something warm to drink will help with that,” Bonnie says, grabbing the empty coffee pot resting by the fire. She goes to the sink after that, filling it with water and keeping up conversation meanwhile. “I’m sorry to hear about that money, by the way. All the work you folks did… Guarma sounds awful, by the way.”

He scoffs, as if “awful” is an understatement. “It was goddamn _agony.”_

“Funny enough, I thought that was what Dutch wanted anyway,” Bonnie chuckles. “A tropical paradise, right? The way he’d rave about the tropics, ‘bout mangoes and Tahiti, you would think so.”

Arthur hums. “Guess it ain’t live up to his expectations,” he says after a pause. “To tell the truth, I ain’t too sure Dutch knows what he wants anymore.”

Those last words are mumbled, as if they are slander to say. Bonnie isn’t sure she minds really, after what she has been told about Guarma, but a thought keeps her from expressing anything but a light laugh. “You sound like John there…”

The kettle is full and all that is left is coffee grounds and a fire. She grabs those grounds as she moves to the fire, eyeing a chair she’ll pull up once she’s done. She hears Arthur laugh again. “Ah, John… Smart as a whip, but never far from trouble.”

Trouble he put himself in, willingly to save her hide, and trouble she should’ve worked harder to prevent. She couldn’t laugh at his joshing then, sighing instead. “I can’t help worrying about him though…”

The coffee is done, and she sits it by the fire to boil, not even noticing Arthur’s gaze on her temple. “Naturally, but we’ll get him back, miss,” he says. “Just as soon as we can. I promise.”

She lets herself nod, going to the chair she eyed with a trudging walk. “That’s what Sadie said,” she tells Arthur. “But I suppose I just had to hear it from you in order to truly believe it.”

Then another thought rears her mind, causing her to divert her gaze down to her twiddling fingers. “I—I know you don’t care for me and John and all…”

Arthur’s hand coming up to swat stops her. “What I think doesn’t matter,” he says. “’Least it ain’t _all_ that matters.”

“It matters to _me,”_ Bonnie insists. “It’s your thinking that made me want to turn him down in the first place, really.”

“I was mad at John, not you. All that mess he’d done to Abigail and the boy… But what’s done is done I guess, and it’s _his_ life. As for you, you were just in love.” He pauses, to turn his gaze from the fire. “Still are.”

The second jab at her continuing to stay with the gang for John. However, his smile tells her he means nothing by it, and Bonnie allows a smile and a blush to form on her face. He continues after a while: “You know, I really feel bad for you regarding that money. You was gonna leave us and start a new life for yourself. Guess you’re stuck with all us bums now.”

Bonnie couldn’t catch her laugh. “Y’all ain’t bums,” she swats him off. “Anyway, I’m sure you folks have been in deeper shit.”

Arthur laughs. “You’re right about that.”

Another bit of silence goes while another thought bounces around her mind, one that she decides to confide: “Then, y’all are better than most people, really, and I want to stick by y’all for that. Repay all the kindness that y’all have shown me. I think about all them folks we’ve lost, Hosea, and those kids, and I want to stay for them too. They was good people, and I should try to be good too, just for them.” 

For the first time in a long time, she speaks from the heart, thankfully with the right person. She knows this when she meets his gaze and sees a smile on his face, one with pride. “That’s very kind of you, Miss MacFarlane. Very kind indeed.”

She could do nothing but smile back. She surely hopes so. 

Then the front door swings open. Their talk stands by at that, as the gang bombards Javier Escuella with their next wave of unbridled joy.

Time goes on after, well into the late hours of the night. The group seems full with Arthur, Javier, and Micah all there by then, even with three other members missing. And they all seem to be anticipating Dutch’s arrival.

And sure enough, once the long hand on the time strikes midnight, the door bursts open and there Dutch van der Linde is in flesh and blood, and still bigger than life. Glee bounces off the walls in hollers and hoots and it makes the man grin like a golden child. Bonnie is just as happy to see him alive and well, even as he is uncharacteristically disheveled.

“How’d you folks find each-other?” he asks with awe. “What happened? Can… Can somebody fetch me a cup of coffee or something?”

Tilly gets up to follow his request through while Strauss answers his questions: “It was Mrs. Adler who saved us, Dutch. After the bank robbery in Saint Denis, she got us away before the Pinkertons turned up. Then, with Miss MacFarlane and Mr. Smith, she drove away the degenerates who were living here!”

Dutch’s look to Sadie is with great pride. “Mrs. Adler, we owe you!”

The gang bombards her with compliments and kudos, and Bonnie gives her own out too; she helped with finding out John’s whereabouts too, so she _must_ give her praise, as it is well-deserved.

But after the fuss dies down a little, Tilly comes back with the coffee Dutch asked for, along with a look of concern. “What’ll we do now though, Dutch? We’ve been surviving but only just. It’s been real hard.”

She makes Dutch’s head hang a bit, sighing. “There ain’t no doubt about that,” he says. “But I will get us out of here. Trust me. This ain’t over.”

Bonnie nods along with the rest of the bunch, hoping so, and speaks up after a moment without talk. “We went on and buried Hosea and Lenny, you know, Dutch. Charles and Karen stole his body from the morgue one day and buried them together at Bluewater Marsh. It was very nice.”

She can still remember that day; the sky had layer after layer of clouds, but no rain. Really, the clouds were a placid and warm yellow, only parted to a beam of light over the horizon, as if Hosea and Lenny’s spirits were looking down on all of them. A very nice day indeed, and the gang concurred with her in their nods.

Dutch smiles at that, that genuine smile. “Thank you, folks.”

Then the door bursts open again, for the umpteenth time and sending Bonnie into a jump. The only man who could ever open a door with that much strength and unadulterated vigor could only be Bill Williamson, of course.

“Well, here you is!” he comes in smoking from the ears. “I asked everyone I could find, and eventually someone knew. Said you fools was out here.” He stomps after the sink with a mean look on Sadie. “Shit, get me a drink or something!”

He must be agitated by all the rain that has his clothes drooping over his skin, making his already shaggy hair and beard look even shaggier. However, Sadie didn’t take his attitude, biting back. “Get your own damn drink!”

“Mrs. Adler here has been looking after things in our absence,” Dutch buds in, frowning. “So kindly show her some respect. And _sit down.”_

Bill shuts up then, like a child who has been scolded. It’s like Bill, no less, always a child and unwilling to take what he gives out. It draws a laugh out of all the gang nonetheless, and Bonnie would have joined in the laughter if not for the remembrance of a thought.

“So, Dutch? What’s gonna be done about—”

_“This is Agent Milton with the Pinkerton Detective Agency!”_

The sound calls from right outside the hut, through the weak windows and through the weak walls and through Bonnie’s ears, stopping her heart. _Already?_

Everyone once in a seat is now standing and everyone who could carry a gun is now carrying one, falling into a quiet that they urge everyone else to fall into. And while Milton gives his ultimatum outside, Bonnie looks at every gun for a glimpse of direction, a glimpse of what to do, however Arthur’s shrug says it all.

If her stomach isn’t already in her knees, it drops right down to her feet when bullets suddenly soar all around.

Everything is destroyed in their path, marking holes in the wooden walls and shattering the windows’ glass and numbing the drum in Bonnie’s ear as she slumps tautly against the floor; one upward move and she knows a bullet will graze her back.

Bill and Micah are on the latter side of her, their conversation barely intelligible over the bullets.

_“Asked everyone you could find, eh, Bill?”_

_“Shut up!”_

This might have been Bill’s fault, but Bonnie couldn’t point a finger, not when an angry red fire erupts from across her, right from a lantern that is shattered at the handiwork of a bullet. It takes her attention, and a clean bout of air away from her lungs. Dutch urges everyone to stay put, but with the sulfuric gray smoke crowding the room, and seeing beyond it Arthur and Sadie’s shuffle to the back door, guns ready, Dutch’s instruction is one Bonnie loses her ability to adhere to.

At that, she casts a look at Bill. _“We gotta go push ‘em back! Come on! Grab your gun!”_

Bill does just that and follows Bonnie out into the warm rain and the warmer winds. She looks out beyond the dark and sees Sadie taking Arthur to the other house, possibly to flank them; she remembers a trap door being there. She leads Bill after them then, all the while catching a small glimpse of the hellfire those Pinkertons are giving everyone inside the hut. It’s something that makes Bonnie have to pray for their safety inside there.

Bonnie climbs behind Arthur into the other house, Sadie, and Bill behind them. Once inside, they take position and whisper among each other the next course of action until something stops them all: the rain replacing the bullets.

Sadie shares her furrowed brow with Arthur. “Why’ve they stopped shooting?”

It’s Milton, of course, giving yet another ultimatum like a villain out of a Penny Dreadful. It sounds like shit from his teeth to Bonnie, and she only wants to shoot the bastard dead, but no one wants that more than Arthur, who is suddenly a volcano in his oozing anger… “This bastard is _really_ starting to irritate me…”

Until he finally erupts, kicking the doors open with a rallying cry. **_“Come on!”_**

The heavy rain, the strong winds, and the sheer number of law halts Bonnie at first: the men stand everywhere, before the house and by the wagons and siding supplies. Their badges illuminate in the varying light around the dark area, making them all look like a million stars in the sky. A million to kill. However, once Arthur guns six of them down like the strike of a match, including the machine gunner, Bonnie jumps for ground, rifle in hand; Arthur’s paved the way for the goal. 

She bolts for the nearest tree, calculating with each heavy step; thirty rounds to use. She tries her best gifting each lawman at least one bullet as they come, either in the head or in the chest or in the stomach. Then, by the time she’s has ten rounds spent, an observation comes to her that she shouts it behind her: _“There’s more coming! Let’s go at ‘em!”_

Arthur, Sadie, and Bill zip for trees at that, Bonnie following yet slowly and carefully and watching for another badge, another star. They multiply in number the closer she trudges to the deep bark, oozing from all directions. Bonnie’s rounds and level head remains, shooting every star, boot, and hat, and by the end, she has fifteen rounds left to spare.

“Damn, they’re still coming. Someone ought to get on that gatling gun!”

“I will! Y’all hold position— and watch your head!”

Arthur leaves them at the same moment more reinforcements come, jogging over the horizon that is consumed by a blue darkness. A squint and further focus keeps them from getting to close to Bonnie until at Sadie’s call to do so, they fall back to Lakay’s main grounds. It is only to reel the remaining law in, and once they are, the real show begins.

Bonnie could barely make out her rifle’s sounds over the numbing _tut-tut-tut_ of the gatling gun. Arthur swings it around with unbridled rage and without a thought to caution, but it has the Pinkertons dropping like flies at a quicker rate, paired with every gun’s thought to shoot at the dynamite boxes and the lanterns. Pinkertons either rip into gutty shreds, soar into the air, or have their flesh set alight.

Then finally, after enough bodies stacking the watery ground, whoever is alive turns tail, and appropriately, Arthur yells after them, “That’s right! **_Run_** _, you spineless sons of bitches!”_

The man has an angry red halo around him on the perch of the gatling gun, right above a scene that has the potential of being mistaken for a Civil War battleground. Just with lawmen. It would have caught Bonnie’s heart and mind had she not been numb to it.

However, Arthur’s descent off the perch, shaking and heaving, is not something she is used to. Poor Arthur, that Guarma germ is doing a number on him and she hurries in siding him, if only to offer support. Meanwhile, the rest of the gang comes out from the hut and it is a comfort knowing they’re all there, no casualties.

Dutch is the one to arrive last, with thankful awe. “You saved us, Arthur.”

“Well, me and them… Bill, Sadie, and Miss MacFarlane—”

A cough launches him into his hand, heavy and rough on his poor lungs. Bonnie frowns at the sight, unable to help the hand that lays on his back. “You okay, Arthur?”

But even in all that, he recovers in the champion way a rough outlaw usually does— “Sure.”— turning to Dutch, approaching with Micah. “What do we do, Dutch?” Arthur asks.

The man seems just as worn-out in his answering. “Well, we clearly need to leave. It’ll take some time for the law to regroup,” he says, casting a look to the rest of the gang who either stand aimlessly or wait for instruction. “Mr. Pearson, Miss Grimshaw, start packing up. Javier, you and Bill go scare off any scum still loitering about. We need a couple of days— _please,_ gentlemen.”

Bill goes with a “sure”, Javier following suit, and Arthur sighs a question for his own instruction. “What next, Dutch?”

“We just need some time. I—I—I just need some time. Now we can’t go east, ‘cause then we’ll be in the ocean, so we’re just gonna have to go… north? I guess?”

His words run together, nervously, and fearfully said, unlike him. So is the hand he suddenly slams against the perch’s wood. “I just need somebody to buy me some goddamn _time—_ one of you!”

Micah steps up, naturally: “You’ll figure something out, boss. You always do.”

But for Bonnie, all this talk of time… “I wanted to tell you John’s been arrested, Dutch.”

His eyes buck at her. “Arrested?”

She nods. “During the bank robbery. We’ve got to get him before it’s too late.”   
  


“I see… We’ll—we’ll get him, miss. We will. Just not… not yet.”

That pauses Bonnie. “What do you mean?”

“Just… give me some time, miss, _please._ ”

He starts away. Bonnie’s brows furrow jogging after him. “Dutch, I want to, but I’m afraid we ain’t got much; there’s talk of him hanging.”

_Talking of killing your son._ Surely, that would be enough to stop him, but his hand only rises to swat. “It’s not gonna come to that!” He keeps walking.

Bonnie jogs even faster. “What do you mean it ain’t gonna come to that? You of all people know how them lawmen are— they don’t just sentence folks to death all _willy-nilly—"_

“Not now, miss, I—… not now!”

Then he vanishes, blending into the bright orange of the hut, and Micah shuts the door behind him. He’s gone, the news of his son’s life about to end not even hitting him. Not even _grazing_ him _._

“What… what’s wrong with him? Ain’t he heard what the hell I said?”

Her look to Arthur and Sadie is desperate, angry, confused, and many other things that have her heart beating faster than she can register. The two of them side her, nonetheless, Sadie’s words in a calm: “Don’t worry. We’ll get him. Me and Arthur.”

Bonnie grips her head. “Will you?”

“We will,” she insists. “I’ll go figure out how to rescue him now.”

Arthur looks up. “Now?”

“Yes, now. Meet me in Saint Denis. Doyle’s Tavern on Milyonne Avenue.”

Arthur shrugs. “Okay.” And it sends Sadie after her horse. That alone should have been enough to calm Bonnie’s nerves, but nothing does, not when Dutch’s irregular behavior has her head spinning, and the time running short leaves a crater in her gut.

Arthur’s warm hand on her shivering shoulder isn’t even enough to quell it.

* * *

After a couple of days, they ride on to their next spot that is in the northern parts of Roanoke Ridge’s country, past a place called Butcher Creek. The precise location is clever; it tops a mountain side, tucking in the wood on the edge of the face so no one could really spot them riding by. The place steeps in gloom though, as the sun rarely comes out, and if it does, the beams bounce an ugly, gaudy yellowish color off the tree leaves. Fitting really, considering everyone’s state. And while helping with the unpacking, Bonnie is handing a box to Karen when as soon as she steps back, her heel splats into a pool of blood.

“Oh!” she hops away, as if she hasn’t stepped in blood before, but that was blood she knew was there. She shakes off her maroon boot. “Guess Arthur and Charles missed a spot.”

“Suppose so, but it won’t hurt nothing,” Karen shrugs. “Dutch and Arthur say we’ll be okay here. It’s a spot no one comes to. Too big and scary even for the Pinkertons.”

Speak of the devil, Arthur comes strolling by just then; some business elsewhere clearly left him late to the party. Meanwhile, as Bonnie lifts a chair, she is intrigued. “That so? Why?”

She hands it to Karen and turns back to the wagon for another piece of luggage when Karen answers, “Murfree Broods is up here.”

Her body shuts down, excepting her head that turns. “…Murfree Broods?”

“Murfree Broods. The crazed murderers who hunt on folks, probably eating their flesh too—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know who they are, I just…”

It was just a pool of blood before. Now it’s looking back at her. Swirling and dark and crimson, running off in the gravel and looking back at her. Some pale pink floats in it too, brains. Her brother’s brains. Her _father’s_ brains—

“You just what?”

Bonnie shakes herself, swallowing. “Nothing. You think, um… anyone would mind if I sit me down a moment?”

She’s got to. Her head hurts as if it’s bloating against her skull and she’s got to. But Karen— “Grimshaw will mind, for sure. You know how that old coot is. Why though? You okay?”

“Um… sure! Sure. Uh, keep— keep talking. I’m fine. Really.”

Karen does, all the while Bonnie doesn’t touch another box until she’s got that puddle covered with a blanket, if only to calm her bloating mind.

“So, Dutch! Did ya’ miss me?”

“I found her, drunk in Saint Denis!”

All that volume makes it no better, but it’s Molly O’Shea, however, with Uncle escorting her and with a wobble in her walk and posture. Even her heels clicking on the pavement is louder than the camp noise, and it has Bonnie looking up with the rest of the band. 

“You’re back,” Dutch says. “How jolly, Miss O’Shea.”

He says it with a surprising irony, but nothing is more surprising than Molly who gets right in his face and yells, “It’s _Molly,_ you sack o’shit!”

“Back and drunk—”

“Who made _you_ the master—”

“Molly, calm down—”

“The Lord God Almighty—”

She circles him and circles him, as if testing him in a way and it clearly works when his face glows brighter and brighter with frustrated red. This is new to Bonnie and when she looks at Karen who is just as confused, she finds it’s new to _everyone._

“Calm yourself, miss—”

“I won’t be ignored, Dutch van der Linde! I aren’t ‘im, I ain’t her, or any of you _stooges—”_

Molly is just as red, either from the whiskey that takes up her scent or the anger that has been pent up and is now erupting. A crowd gathers, like an audience of a stage show. Bonnie couldn’t help herself either.

“I don’t owe you nothing! _Nothing!_ I’ll spit in your eye—”

“Miss O’Shea—”

“I did! _I told them!”_

The whole world comes crashing down on all shoulders, and Dutch gets the brunt of it. “…I’m sorry?”

“Yeah, I told ‘em, and I’d tell ‘em again! Now _I’ve_ got God’s ear!”

“You told who _what?”_

“Mr. Milton and Mr. Ross about the bank robbery, and I wanted them to kill ya’!”

_“You did what?”_

Dutch draws his pistol, completely unhinged and completely unlike him. Bonnie wants to understand, but Molly’s eyes begin to gloss, and she’s screaming, “I loved you, you _goddamn bastard—_ go on, _shoot me!”_

There has to be a reason why she’s done what she’s done, perhaps Dutch isn’t the perfect godly man everyone makes him out to be, and maybe Bonnie knew that, but for it to come out like _this…_ in this eye-for-an-eye, in Arthur urging quiet and urging Dutch to spare Molly when his trembling finger yearns to pull that trigger…

“You know the rules, Arthur!”

Dutch looks at Molly with a hail of fire, and all she does is bask in the hail, in the angels and the harps to come and it bates Bonnie’s breath.

“Oh, not so big now, are we, your Majesty?”

_“You—”_

Then Molly’s stomach bursts open, sending guts either side of her and sending everyone in a jump. Bonnie’s head whips around for the source.

Then she sees Miss Grimshaw, smoke searing from the shotgun wrapped in her hands. Molly O’Shea slumps to the floor.

“She knew the rules, Arthur. What the hell is wrong with you? Mr. Pearson, Mr. Williamson—get this body outta here and get it burnt! Now get back to work. _All_ _of you!”_

That includes Bonnie, but she couldn’t yet when all her hands do is reach for the camp girls, pushing them toward a quieter side of camp. “Come on, girls, come away,” she can barely whisper.

Karen couldn’t pick up her jaw, Mary-Beth couldn’t stop crying, Tilly could barely move, and Bonnie… she has no idea what to think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Try not to be too mad at me about Arthur and Molly aight? PFFF


End file.
